I write truth...

Papa & Nellie Rose

THE LULU CHRONICLES

Yeah, I’ve been missing in action, I know. For the first time in my adult life, I am finding ‘writing’ to be hard. Usually putting words to ‘paper’ have been my oasis, my comfort, and my sanity. But not today, or yesterday, or the day before. The words are there but they are scrambled. They are flimsy and when I put them on a page they come off sounding thin and as see through as a gauzy curtain blowing in a wind.

I keep rearranging the words on the page like Scrabble pieces but they don’t make sense. I write the word ‘love’ but it comes out on the page as ‘sorrow’. I spell out the word f-a-i-t-h, but it appears as f-a-i-l-e-d.

My words are in mourning. They have no legs or strength. I don’t like what I have to write. I want to write and tell you how my husband is healing and recovering. I want to write how the treatments are working and the cancer is disappearing. Those are the words I want to write, long to write. But I can’t write them. I can’t because they are not true.

Gary’s body is not responding to treatments. The cancer is winning. The cancer is invading and taking hostage my Love. I hate writing that. I hate committing those words to paper. Those words are ugly. Hateful. Those words ooze with despair. Those words betray me.

So, I try again to write happy things like Gary is feeling better. The cancer is retreating. Our life together will not be cut short. I so want to write those things, mean those things. I so want those words to be true. But I am a writer. I write truth. Those words aren’t true.

My words are in mourning. They lack nourishment. They are shrouded in a dark veil.

However …

There is this one word… this one word that still pops on the page. This word still has power. This word still has strength. This word is still True. All it needs is a flicker, a tiny spark, a willing heart and it jumps on the page dressed in white armed to the teeth with fight. The word is…

Actually, it’s two words. I utter them all the time. They are the words that come and stand alone beside me. They are the words that come when no others will. They are the only words I have left.

They are the words that embody everything I feel, want, wish, and hope.

I sigh. I cry. But they do not desert me… those two words… those two precious words…

Dear God …