The Search for Serenity

Another cancer counselling session has passed and I found I had more to relay this time.

It's been a difficult week emotionally, with some highs and some real lows, some of the worst so far, but I'm starting to understand why. It's a slow process and life feels Jekyll and Hyde. The black and white Sam can no longer predict, no longer control. My analogy to my Counsellor was “it's like someone has pressed the pause button on SkyPlus, you're waiting for something to happen, but no-one presses start or fast forward. Let's rewind this nightmare, but the pause button is well and truly holding it's own”. Life is literally left hanging out on a limb.

But it would seem that those wide range of emotions, of which I have had every single one, are perfectly normal. Shock, disbelief, denial, awkwardness, panic, anger, guilt, frustration, fear, loss of control, terror. These feelings never leave me, but some days they go a little easier on me, and other days they like to offer a hard time. What's normal you ask, I'm not sure, you're definitely asking the wrong person, but I'm reliably informed these feelings are to be expected, they are not wrong and I am entitled to feel each and every one.

I'm not a particularly religious person. I attended Church through my Church of England School and through Girl Guides, weddings, christenings, funerals and so on, but since this journey began I've had an urge to revisit the Church. I have always liked visiting Churches and find them incredibly serene places but I'm not a regular Church goer.

It started at diagnosis with a request to my Husband to buy me a cross pendant for Christmas. No other gifts where important, just the cross. You will see me now bearing this cross most days and if you are a little more attentive you will see I have developed a habit of rubbing it. I now understand this to be comfort. I also realise this urge is a subconscious grasp at finding peace and serenity. So I stopped by at the Hospital Chapel. Not a place I had visited before but I did feel calmer for those few moments and it did permit for a quiet tear in the corner.

A prayer now resides on the prayer board – I haven't asked for a miracle or a cure, merely a helping hand as I continue down this path and as I was leaving I came across this Prayer left by the Chaplain. Particularly apt I thought:

A Dream

One night I had a dream, I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
And across the sky flashed scenes of my life.
For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonged to me, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of my life flashed before us,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand,
I noticed that many times along the path of life there was only one set of footprints.
I also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in my life.
This really bothered me, and I questioned the Lord about it.
Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you
You would walk with me all the way,
But I noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why in the times when I needed you most you should leave me.
The Lord replied “My precious, precious child” I love you and would never leave you during the times of trial and suffering.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then I was carrying you.


With sincere thanks to BNHT Chapel and Wessex Cancer Trust