Abyss

The abyss, it turns out, is stealthy. It’s always lurking there, of course – but I joke over it, try to keep my spirits up, try to make people laugh. And that’s good for me, for all of us, I guess – just not all the time.

I figure I’m in the cancer honeymoon. One big operation over, a week to let chemicals leave my system, time to talk to people and visit. I’m a little weak but not sick – and the most drastic visible change is short hair and needle bruises. Nothing too scary. Yet.

So my days are good. I feel blessed and relieved to be home. My fridge is full of food, lovingly tendered by caring people. I have my support team to call on.

And I’m caught up on Coronation Street and North of 60. All good, right?

At the end of the day, I watch British Comedies. Sensible me. Laughter as medicine.

And I cross the threshold of my bedroom door and there is it is. It’s like some kind of magic, how it can appear like that. I start to sob. It's loud and hard sobbing - snotty and scared and angry. And I’m railing aloud to the Abyss…I’m demanding to know if any sort of God lives in there.  And if so – what KIND of God? The mean old score-keeper of patriarchy? The one counting sparrow falls? I rant for me – but I rant for the starving in Africa and street people and victims of war and disaster, too. I’m not even trying to be sensible because I just want to know – If you are out there God, do you notice any of this? I mean, how is it I'm left with zero sense of a faith I once held dear? Is this hitting your voice mail?

And I cry it out. And then I sleep for two hours. Tomorrow, as Scarlet says, is another day.