The “Anti Blessing”

In the second week of October 2021, just 3 months after my radical hysterectomy and a month after I started chemotherapy, one late night, my sister and I booked a cab and set off for a 12-hour journey to Dharamshala, a wonderous Himalayan town, the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile and the home of my heart. It was the place where I found peace, rejuvenation and healing and this impromptu trip which was planned and executed under 3 hours was rooted in the deep need for healing from everything life had thrown at me over nearly two decades.

I never had it easy. I know many claim the copyright to similar sentences and feelings, but I truly did not. My very very rich parents became bankrupt when I was 13 and never recovered. My adolescent and teen years were spent in halfway houses, sometimes maybe with one meal a day and spending all hours listening to the threats and recriminations of debtors and relations alike. I left my academic ambitions to help my parents pay off their debts and just when things were starting to improve, they both died in quick succession leaving me rootless at a very young age. But the best was yet to come, the diagnosis of stage 3 Ovarian and Endometrial cancer, just when my career was starting to look bright, my life was stable and I was surrounded by some great friends, who replaced the need of relations who had disappeared very early.

The thing that I did not know about Cancer when I was initially diagnosed was how much more encompassing and destructive this disease was, and not just physically. My very successful career came to a grinding halt, because my then leader decided I was a lost cause and it was better to look after others than invest in a probable here today, gone tomorrow employee. This after 16 years of top tier performance. But this alone would not have broken me as the desertion of my so-called friends. People whom I thought of as family, never had time for me. They never visited, and never called. Taking me to the hospital became an onerous task, though the initial offer was made by them. After telling me I was family and not a friend, they always found reasons to not be around me. The ones who stuck around a little longer, turned out to be grief tourists, who would find “glamor” and “feel good” factors in their occasional visits/phone calls. But that October day it had been one too many – I host a Dinner every year, after Durga Puja. I had planned for this event this year as well and told everyone to keep that Sunday free, two months in advance. A week before this event I sent out reminder invites to 23 odd people. They were all who had acknowledged that they would be available and be free to join. And every single one of them refused – there was family visits, family events and lives to be led that did not include attending a Cancer patient’s dinner party.

I was emotionally exhausted, physically drained and I needed to go away, where I could lick my wounds in peace. To Dharamshala we would go. We checked into the town by mid-morning and were ensconced in our favorite room, at our favorite hotel by afternoon. Under shadow of snow peaked mountains with the gentle sounds of Buddhist monks chanting at the nearby temple, I felt my soul reviving, a calm settling, but the healing was not complete yet; the process of transformation was still not over.

Later in the day when I logged into work, (we were all work from home then and I worked evening supporting my US market clients) I discovered two pieces of news that spiraled me into ultimate breakdown. One of those deserting friends, had been given a promotion and called my sister to share the news, without asking once of how I was, had I recovered etc. The second was the promotion itself; I was a prime candidate for the role and I had not taken any off except the three weeks of surgery and was working through chemotherapy with best possible results and my leader had not bothered to tell about the role or recommend me, the leader whom I had thought the world off. There was too much of hurt, too much pain, too many excuses of why something could not happen.

The next day, my sister and I booked a car and went further north, deeper into the mountains. After a point, the road was inaccessible by car and we started walking. Neither my sister or I were sure how far I would be able to walk in my current physical condition. But I needed to get away from the crowd, to breathe easy and shake off my frustration and anger.

We started walking. It was hard, very hard, especially the initial distance. I was out of breath and there were too many people on the trail and selfie seekers and hawkers crowded the path. But after a point, my breathing adjusted and I started walking slowly to ease the discomfort of my back and legs. We made slow progress and had several pit stops, both for me to recover and for my sister to take pictures. But we kept walking and suddenly, we had outstripped the tourists and the hawkers and the more trafficked paths. The air became even more cleaner, crisper, and even sweeter. Coniferous trees swayed gently to the breeze, sometimes scattering pine cones on the path. The mountains around me grew larger, more magnificent with a mosaic of colors, each of a different hue. The grey merged into green and the green merged further into dark green, almost black like texture as only the mountains of Himalayas can.

As the sun reached it’s summit, the peaks glittered like diamonds  atop huge canvases of colors. It was quiet, so very quiet; the only sound was the sound of our feet, hitting the trail and there was no one except, the blue sky, the huge mountains, the spirit of something larger than life and us. It was beautiful, it was tranquil and it was healing and I had reached the final stop. And the one thing that seemed to encompass that moment , was a poem by Mary Oliver.

Every day
     I see or hear
          something
               that more or less

kills me
     with delight,
          that leaves me
               like a needle

in the haystack
     of light.
          It was what I was born for --
               to look, to listen,

to lose myself
     inside this soft world --
          to instruct myself
               over and over

in joy,
     and acclamation.
          Nor am I talking
               about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
     the very extravagant --
          but of the ordinary,
               the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
     Oh, good scholar,
          I say to myself,
               how can you help

but grow wise
     with such teachings
          as these --
               the untrimmable light

of the world,
     the ocean's shine,
          the prayers that are made
               out of grass?

It was here, at this point, where I finally found calmness in the acceptance of the rage inside me for all the unfair things, I had been subjected too for all my life. I made peace with the fact that things change, and sometimes they change inevitably. But also, somethings did not; like the mountains did not, nor my own agency through which I could do, be and accomplish whatever I want, just like completing the hike. And I was free!

We returned to a grand meal at a restaurant back in the town and that night when I had logged in, I was transformed. I understood that for the final time the job that I had was what I do and not who I was. That I will find new companionships and learn to thrive in my own company. And that there was still so much beauty in life, poetry in life, and that made everything a joy. I would go back and start advocacy work for Cancer, I would write more, travel more. Cancer would come back to me again less than 6 months after I completed my chemo, and I would have to be put on chemo for the rest of my life. I would lose other promotions and more friends. But I would also find new friends, good projects at work with some great colleagues. I would fall down , but I also would pick up the pieces again and forge forward. And I did not forget , that I am what I choose to be and as long as there were mountains, books and my sister, life was as wonderful as it could be!

This post was written in response to a prompt from The Isolation Journals by Suleika Jaoud. This week’s prompt was contributed by Kate Bowler – “Think of a time when you felt especially unlucky. The opposite of #blessed—the “anti-blessing,” if you will—but then you noticed something beautiful, funny, anything that sparkled. Write about holding the tension of both the deep terrible and the fairy dust feeling“. You can read the full article on The Isolation Journal

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