The Smile Box

I’m not sure why I still am surprised at the capacity of how amazingly supportive everyone can be, but I am, and it needs telling, over and over. The way in which the production of love jumps to my side, in all walks and shapes and ages, is astonishing.

The Smile Box came in a package from a coworker of my husbands. Her and her most lovely daughter filled a beautiful glass box for me with true and creative little “smiles” in the form of mostly shrinky dinks (which is the absolute best thing in the world!) and little tokens of love. Accompanied by small metal hearts, a pretty rock, a seashell, a fortune, was a big old handful of small shrinky dinks emblazoned with words of love, Milo’s name, flowers, coffee cups, and even a tiny bottle of wine! The list of little treasures goes on and the best part of this incredible gift of smiles is that it made for a most precious game for Milo and I when he visited. We carefully unwrapped the gift together, explaining that our friends made this to help me feel better. What a playful time he and I had, looking at each piece as he decided that because this is for my boo-boo, they all needed to go in my boo-boo. He looked at each treasure and placed them on top of my chest where the port lives (Milo thinks this is the boo-boo site) and kept putting the little pieces down my shirt. A first it was a struggle to fight back the tears at how sweet and scary and sad this felt but once we powered through watching such an excited display, it was the most amazing game ever! The Smile Box was both literally and figuratively packed with stunning love, and of course, smiles 🙂

The Smile Box is now a term I think I will use for these magical gifts, encounters, and support that I find along this course I am on. I’m usually not this sort of cutie with my words but smiles are abound, so I’ll take the cue and add it to my list of idioms.

So yesterday afternoon, at the spurring of my dear friend, we wandered around the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he guided me in a wheelchair, a big step for me, and I had the most amazing afternoon. It was, indeed, a smile box full. In more ways than one, the day was simply bright. I gazed upon incredible art, of which it has been two years since I have stepped into a museum (too long for me) while having a day with a most amazing friend whom I rarely get to see. We laughed and cried and discussed life, art, love and the fears of mathematical equations. At the end of my road, he got the car while I slowly hobbled from wheelchair to a faraway curb when another smile box emerged. Sedrick and Miss Lady. Miss Lady was a beautiful dog of which I complimented, she nuzzled my leg and her owner, Sedrick, a tall gentle, young man told me that I was going to be okay. He knew it. His mother had cancer, he had asked if my leg was okay as I had my cane and extremely slow gait, but he knew I had cancer. He didn’t want to pry but he expressed that I reminded him of his mother, my poise and my spirit alighted something within him that he wanted to share. He was gentle with his words, yet confident that something needed telling. He knew that I was going to get through this, he expressed assuredly. He said that I was in the right place, that she (his mother) beat hers swiftly and though mine may be different, he just knew. I said, you know, I think you are right. I told him how I, of course, missed my family, but I know this is where I am supposed to be and thanked him for sharing in my beliefs and that this positive way of thinking is the only way. He kept on telling me about his mother, his sadness on being far from her, his emotions surrounding her illness. He was an angel that wanted to share his love with me and embraced me with his words. And well, it just so happened he was from New York too! A dark, lovely angel from Harlem opened his heart to me on the sidewalk of LACMA. He walked me the whole way to the curb, to my friend and in these moments I wonder how we can part from such people. I won’t see this man again and part of me is saddened by that, but I know that is the way life is supposed to be, we have encounters, smiles, and he will go home and call his mother and I will carry that moment forever in my heart. All for the spurring of learning to use a tool when I need one, loving my day with my dear friend, and meeting Sedrick and Miss Lady; I opened a very big Smile Box.

The rain of pain in LA (for just an hour)

4am, is it the rain in Los Angeles, pouring onto the stone patio outside of my window, which wakes me this hour, or is it the pain. This is a new ritual. The 4am snack and oxycodone alarm clock, though today I believe it was the soft rain, I woke up smiling as if I were home. I ate my savory cookie, took my pill and rather than dream sweet, I decide to lay awake and listen to the brief interludes that remind me of home. There is much reflection this week, here essentially by myself. Gorgeous friends helping when I need, but I am completely responsible for my own schedule, which is nice, but in all honesty, a bit wrapped up with fears. My independence, of which I wear so proudly, is a question with each step I take, each one that is a supreme ache. I’m slower than the 90 year old man walking with his cane next to me. It is interesting how this first week on my own, I feel the most physically weak and unable to do things without intense caution. There can be no. falling. down. This is a big deal for a young woman. This is the weakness I wanted to stave away. No walker, no wheelchair….not yet, please. I’m not ready to do that….but when will I be? This is the time when I say never. This, I am not accepting. Sorry cancer, you can’t take this, I want to bounce back and walk with ease. I’ll take the stylish vintage cane at a snails pace, that I can do…

Will these bones heal? As I have been awaiting four days now for a return phone call from the doctor, the big wonderments are starting to creep in, so when the drug really stabilizes things soon (with hopeful gasp) will my bones have time to heal? Can I gain some ground or did we lose too much in the waiting game of drug trials? This part of being on my ‘own’ here I hate….I hate not having the comfort zone of my doctor, my, beautiful nurses. They are an extension of my family that make it easier to heal. Here, not so much. The scattered way the office moves is frightening. My UCLA doctor will get an ear full tomorrow. Calling for four days over new pain without response should be unacceptable and certainly inhibits the positive state that I am working hard at maintaining. I’m bathed in my own light, and that of friends, I know this but there is a security blanket at work for me under the umbrella of a great oncology team. For me, I need to have that balance, the best of western medicine with my personal foundations in spiritual, thought and eastern styles. The balance can be easily tipped, especially without my weekly acupuncture and Healeo juice routine, but I make up for this with quiet meditation, breathing or just cleansing thoughts. I do not have control of the drug trail system yet. Yes, I said trail…I keep misspelling drug trial for trail and come to think that maybe that is a better way to look at things. It’s a trail that I am slowly wandering on, breathing in what comes my way….not trying it out, walking the path, I just wish those leading the walk would get a better receptionist.

The rain has subsided, back to bed…