Tuliptherapy

I brought pink tulips, Beloved, to distract you. To ease the cold and tingles of the clear, poison drip. I brought them, Beloved, for myself as well. To stare at during moments when biting the side of my tongue would not be enough to stave off tears. I brought pink tulips to remind us of spring and rebirth and hope and love. To remind us that, amid the painful needle sticks, the beeping, the constant motion outside your cubicle, the full house of patients enduring their own poisonous drips, there is great beauty waiting to be embraced. Within and without.

Cancer is a funny thing, isn't it Beloved? What threatens to tear us apart is also the gorilla glue that makes our hearts inseparable. What makes a body weak gives strength not seen before. Cancer offers up courage and comedy. It reduces walls to rubble. It offers the soul redemption. Its dark pathway shimmers with opportunities for light. It's a funny thing. It's a blessing. Yes. A blessing.

3 weeks from now, Beloved, the tulips will be red. They, too, will remind us of strength and beauty within and without. 7 years and 3 weeks from now, the tulips I bring will be yellow. They will remind us of the light on the path, the love on the path that led us out of darkness.

{The comedy of cancer shows up when my Mother has to bundle up like a mummy to ward off the cold after a session of chemotherapy. The first time she mummified herself, she giggled and asked me to take her picture.}

Pink tulips are a stock photo.