Finding the horizon

From the start, to somewhere

I am going to write. Write through the crisis. Write with the guidance of my fierce, eloquent, crass, sassy, wise mother through this ride I unwillingly find myself back on.

It’s one of those theme park rides that clunk and creak and throw you about and make you want to puke before you emerge in a peaceful moment of silence, watching the horizon, or gliding over the lake, lulling you into a false sense of security before you plunge over the unseen waterfall and your stomach drops and you lose your voice and you smash into the water.

But this one comes with all the nausea and none of the exhilaration.

My mum lived with cancer for 18 years. And through those 18 years, she wrote. Now she was wiser than most, as she worked with and studied relationships her whole life, the relationships we have with one other and the relationships we have with ourselves. Eventually, and after much encouragement, she published her writings, with the support of the Cancer Society Otago Southland Division, into a book To Rakiura and Beyond. The book was published in a limited run, and distributed among Cancer Society rooms and support groups in the region. We received a bunch of boxes at home. Mum used them for her own cancer support group; a group she ran for as long as I can remember. Now, they sit in dad’s garage, and I periodically take a bunch, as I periodically run out, giving them to my close ones, my loved ones. In this phase of my adulthood these books are the only way to show my mum, this integral part of me, to those who will never meet her.

My copy of mum’s book, durasealed and ragged, and somehow still holding a photo taken of me when I shaved my head to raise money for a cancer support group in 2010. Small, unknown preparations.

Unfortunately, the man who spearheaded the project at the Cancer Society left, and we’ve never done another publishing run. Those who have the limited editions are the lucky ones, gifted with the words of my mum. My mum, who can no longer gift more words.

Two weeks ago, after almost a year of remission, I was rushed into hospital with abdominal pain. After an emergency surgery to remove a large, unknown, unmet, previously unseen mass on and around and consuming my right ovary - and my right ovary itself - I was told that the aggressive cancer had relapsed. We fell over the lip of the waterfall.

And it’s devastating.

I had finally been able to start looking again at the horizon, powering up and planning life. So, I’m taking a break from being gracious in the face of adversity and telling adversity it can fuck right off. You are unwanted.

Today, a cherished friend and colleague visited, and dropped off wool to knit in my favourite colour of mustard, oil for my abdominal scar, and a book of lush words. She is a writer, a weaver of emotions and acute observations. I gave her mum’s book, something I had been meaning to do for a long time, and she asked me if I wrote.

”I write when I travel, to process experiences, or when I’m struggling, to process emotions”, I said.

She thumbed through mum’s book, taking in passages, glimpsing the moments.

”Why don’t you write as a response to your mum’s stories?” she asked. “Speak to her words with yours, process your own journey, give life to hers?”

And so, we explored what this could be, an opportunity to speak back to mum, while speaking out to you. A space to process change and challenge. A space to share this journey, that this time, I don’t want to do quietly.

And so this is what this is. Let’s see what happens. Through the creaks and the groans, to glimpses of the horizon.