How does one heal a healer?
Navigating the Intersections of Caregiving, Selfhood, and Survival
In the silent depths of solitude, I find myself with a question as old as the Earth herself: how does one mend the healer's wounds?
Returning to the embrace of home I thought could maybe also be a source of comfort or a sanctuary from life's relentless storms. Yet, in the surrender to familiarity, I find myself adrift, severed from the security of my selfhood.
“Cancers everywhereness drops into a sludge of nowhereness.”
Each day feels like a delicate dance with survival, for both myself in many ways and for my mom. Sontag writes “To think only of oneself is to think of death.” What does it mean to survive? Boyer writes in The Undying “To tell the story of cancer is supposed to be a story of “surviving” via neoliberal self-management, the narrative is of the atomized individual done right, of disease cured with compliance, organic green smoothies, and positive thought.”
A fragile balance on the precipice of despair. Nightfall covers me in tears, a song of sorrow sung to the rhythm of my heartache.
Meals become mere rituals, nourishment is a distant memory in the shadow of exhaustion. The reminder to "take care of yourself" rings hollow in the deep expanse of solitude.
How does one care for oneself when the echoes of companionship fade into the ether, when the laughter of friends is but a distant melody carried on the winds of memory?
In the struggle of caregiving, I find myself stripped bare, forced to confront the intersectional reality of sacrifice. While I watch others cling to the semblance of normalcy, I am bound by something beyond me.
Nap times become sacred interludes from the stolen moments of respite.
The ache of alienation is a constant companion, a silent witness to the passage of days spent yearning for a taste of normalcy. Jealousy passes like a bitter poison, a reminder of the life I once knew and the dreams left unfulfilled.
Yet, it is in the trials of suffering that transformation takes root, birthing new life from the ashes of anguish.
Audre Lorde who died of breast cancer states “To write only of oneself is to write of death, but to write of death is to write of everyone.”
This cancer had rooted its home in my mother’s body for many years refusing to announce itself to her senses and now has a forever home in the system of oncology. Boyer writes “Once we were sick in our bodies. Now we are sick in a body of light… A body in mysterious discomfort exposes itself to medicine hoping to meet a vocabulary with which to speak of suffering in return.”
There becomes an obligation that this cancer is now part of my story, of my mom’s story, of my sister’s story. Sometimes I don’t know why I write and share it to the world. Perhaps just to say that this happened.
Sonja, your eloquence to relay your turmoils is vivid. Mommas journey is a path on which I too traveled. If as her caregiver you need to breathe on the front step, or wander at the park, please reach out to me. I will sit with momma or you if you'd like. What energizes you? The photo of multiple eclipses on your hand speaks of your old soul's ability to capture sacred moments. In kindness I offer bubbles of positive energy for all of you.
My history of caregiving for my husband and now my mother allows me to feel your feelings in my memories.