It started when my hair fell out.
For several weeks it was a messy bun, as chemo began its relentless and poisonous course in my veins.
Then one day my fingers ran through and more strands came out than usual. Fingers reached again and again, then over and again, twice and many times more.
It is happening, a whisper came.
Not more than several minutes later, my long hair lay in a heap on the floor.
Well this is odd, the whisper came again. This is odd, very odd, indeed.
Losses began to rack up, quickening almost. A missed college trip here, a senior swim banquet there, a graduation and niece's wedding. Poof, poof and gone, I began to shrug.
When my surgeon said that my leg must be taken for me to live, I looked at him in all his reassuring certainty and said...
...please take it, please help me. Please, doctor, please.
And so went my leg. Poof, gone. Check, another loss. And now...
...my hair is growing back with curls.
There is a college team for Ben and more trips to see Evan. A visit with my gorgeous niece next week. A new leg to bedazzle and wrap in bracelets soon.
And in those common moments of glory, a twinkle comes and then there is that whisper...
...you were not lost, Julie, you were lightened. That was not lost, Julie, you were lightened.
If you think this lightness stuff is a Dr. Suess kind of riddle, it is to me now and maybe you too, but surely not forever...as Leonard Cohen croons, the crack is how the light gets in. The crack is how the light gets in.
But yes, I do know it started when my hair fell out.
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