Back home

We're back! It's so good to be back home in San Diego in the warmth, the sunshine, the open blue skies.

Death has a different color in San Diego. In Minnesota, inside the tall, sleek buildings of the Mayo Clinic, death seemed very real and very near. Even though the sun was shining on the days we were there, I felt numb to everything. Everything I did felt like a struggle -- as if there were a resistance inside me that I had to overcome and doing so made every move exhausting. Stepping outside into the cold, frigid air, for just the few minutes it took to get from car to building, was enough to give me coughing spasms that seemed to support the doctor's dire prognosis.

I cried a lot in Minnesota, wondering why this was happening to me, why all my friends should rally to my side just to watch me die, what should happen to my beautiful daughter without her mother.

Jenn would just shrug her shoulders at such thoughts. Even after the doctor's pronouncement that shook Andre and myself, she remained calm and upbeat. There is not a doubt in her mind that I can beat this. Sitting in the plane, sandwiched between Andre on my left and Jenn on my right, I realized that I was between two people who had no intention of allowing me to tamely fold up and mournfully prepare for death.

"I don't care what we have to do," Andre declared, holding my left hand, "If we have to go to China, or to Arizona and find a shaman to bless this thing out of you, or anywhere else, we'll do it."

And Jenn, massaging my right arm that was aching again, agreed. "You'll beat this thing," she said, "I just know it. Because that's who you are."

What could I do faced with such relentless optimism, such confidence in a strength that I could not feel but had faint recollections of once having?

I slept.

When we reached San Diego, I walked as though in a daze, until we came out of the airport into the sunshine. Palm trees were waving in the breeze, the air was soft and light, somewhere a child screamed in delight to see her grandmother. I felt something inside me shift, as if a weight were lifted off of me. It felt so good to be home. I felt so lucky to live in such a gorgeous place, to see such beauty on a daily basis. And I promised myself that I should, each day, remind myself of that.

I will go out each day, sit in the sunshine, feel the breeze, listen to the birds sing -- that is one of the luxuries sickness affords. And I intend to take advantage of it.

Bathed in this divine sunshine and the powerful love that I feel all of you sending me, I have no doubt that I will find my strength and I will walk this path and come out at the other end. Dear friends, do not stop sending me your love and prayers --- this is the lull now before I decide what I must do and your thoughts will sustain me. Thank you -- you have my deepest appreciation.