The Living Veil
It was six days ago that I saw it for the first time.
Just before my college classes.
I had been practicing my singing–probing the metal notes of my new chromatic harmonica,
searching for a way to give the soul of my inner song a voice.
As always, alone–in my car,
To my left, ever near me, a large hawk sat surveying my progress.
Just as I was leaving for class, the phone rang.
The doctor spoke to me of the results of my biopsy, carefully dancing around giving me a
straight answer.
Weary of her polite side stepping, I just asked, “So you are telling me that I have cervical
Cancer?”
There was a brief, dense silence. “Yes,” she reluctantly continued. “But we don’t know what
stage yet. More tests are needed, and soon, this is aggressive.”
My feet began to take me towards class, they knew before I did what needed to be done.
Her words became the sound of the graveled asphalt, dispelling small rocks and dirt with an
ominous crunch.
She was so sorry. I hung up.
The knot that had formed in my chest since I answered her call, reached up through my throat
and pulled the tears, like more gravel–liquid stones, from my eyes.
My feet kept taking me to class.
Good feet. Wide. Strong. Grounded.
Holding back the liquid rocks, pushing them back inside, beneath my lids, I dutifully
participated in my classes for the day.
I smiled. No one knew.
My feet kept moving me forward.
Driving to work after my classes I didn’t sing.
The red light of the traffic light was stuck.
I didn’t take notice.
Starring openly at the view before me…
Moonlight Beach, white sand–small glassy shore break.
The train bridge above Hwy 101, Encinitas, my hometown.
How many times had I taken in this view I mulled absentmindedly?
“Syrus.” I spoke aloud.
“My girls.” I half whispered under my breath, still pushing down those damn liquid stones.
The light, still an unmovable red.
Just then…
How can I describe seeing without sight? To tell you how the view in front of me never changed
but became more.
The edges of everything I saw began to breathe, rhythmically pulsating in a slow unison.
Syrus, my beloved brother, was with me, right beside me.
I could feel the warmth of his love as it reached behind my eyes and dissolved each heavy, stone drop of grief.
The sadness became warm and retreated into the snake veins,
Back into my blood.
I blinked to restore clarity to my vision as everything had become fuzzy, blurred and yet I knew I
had never seen this clearly before.
Syrus, and God, had gifted me this.
And I knew–
This was the Living Veil.
In truth, I was shown it on the night after Syrus had been shot and killed.
I was eighteen and had cried myself to sleep on Syrus’s bed, in his trailer.
In my dream Syrus woke me from my sleep. We were in a shapeless place of hazy light. Soft,
Light.
He hugged me tightly and I wept. “Please don’t go,” I sobbed.
He answered simply, “I must, but it will be ok. I love you.”
And he released me and walked down a path lined with trees. The type of trees I had never seen before or since.
He was absorbed by that muted, soft light, and then I woke up.
I don’t know how long I sat at that red light, or how many dimensions vibrated before my eyes.
I only knew it was the same as I had seen 22 years before, and Syrus was showing me again.
When the light turned green finally, I expected the vision to fade,
Return to facades.
It didn’t.
The days since have been a revelation of essence.
Doctor visits and research have given me something I never wanted to know.
My life expectancy.
In my case, depending upon surgical results, radiation and possibly chemo–
Around 10 years.
Give or take a few reliant upon how well my body “responds” to treatments.
I have learned that I do not care how many years “I have left.”
All I want is enough time to make sure my children will have the means to take care of
themselves when I am gone.
That is all I pray for.
And while night finds me awake, contemplating the aggressive, lethal and hungry cluster of cells in my body–
It is not with disgust or malice I revel.
For I see it all through the veil now.
The Living Veil.
It swells and dips with ardor and envelops every sigh, every groan of pain from my cervix.
Yes, there is pain.
Constant now,
As I can feel it grow, multiply–invade.
People have told me throughout my life that I am cursed.
To write all the horrors and anguish I have had to endure one would think I am a liar.
But those who know,
Who stayed when everyone else abandoned hope (Kevin),
They know the truth of me, as I now know my truth.
Life is death and death is life.
They are the same.
Without the end of something there can be no birth of something else.
In all honesty I am grateful for the knowledge this malignancy has gifted me.
It has not taken my happiness but rather given my joy even more fervor–depth–resonance.
The clear, unbridled beauty of this world seethes and glistens all around me,
And I can rest, basking in the sheer grace of the glorious rapture of the Living Veil.