22/02/2022
Rest in power Queen. You are bigger than CANCER
Jane (Nightbirde) in her words
After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didnât love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.
I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower k**b. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet.
I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe Heâll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasnât grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me.
I am Godâs downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself.
I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset.
Call me bitter if you want toâthatâs fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: âIâm sad too.â
If an explanation would help, He would write me oneâI know it. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between usâand I donât want to argue with God. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms.
I remind myself that Iâm praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didnât pray. For forty years, their shoes didnât wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven.
I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didnât pray. I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means âwhat is it?â
Thatâs the same question Iâm askingâagain, and again. Thereâs mercy here somewhereâbut what is it? What is it? What is it?
I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my motherâs crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. Itâs not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. Itâs a prayer I donât mean yet, but will repeat until I do.
Call me cursed, call me lost, call me scorned. But thatâs not all. Call me chosen, blessed, sought-after. Call me the one who God whispers his secrets to. I am the one whose belly is filled with loaves of mercy that were hidden for me.
Even on days when Iâm not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I canât really explain it, but God is in thereâeven now. I have heard it said that some people canât see God because they wonât look low enough, and itâs true. Look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.
