Going to the Cross

This new course of chemo has me thinking once again about the lessons of these past 34 months.  Now in the middle of Cycle three* of this clinical trial, I have learned a new lesson: Sometimes it is better NOT to google information.

Since my diagnosis in 2018, the Cross Cancer Institute has been a huge part of my life. It has been a place of healing and hope. And, ever since I began going there, I operated under the assumption that "The Cross" was named that because, like many hospitals, it was founded by a branch of Christianity.  I was wrong.** Oh well.   Unfortunately, my past is checkered with times where being wrong did not stop me. Why let it stop me now?

As I undertake cancer treatment during this season of Lent, the significance of "going to the Cross" has not been lost on me. It has become both a literal and a metaphorical journey.

Every time I go to the Cross, I am struck by the multitude and variety of people that are there. Young and Old. Male and Female. Singles and Partners. Wealthy and Poor. Cancer patient and Caregiver. Caucasion and Visible minority.  The list could go on.  It seems to me, the full spectrum of Canadian society is reflected at the Cross. If you have been there, you know that at arrival, they greet you at the front desk and help you find your way. Never once in my numerous visits have I seen someone turned away from the Cross because they did not have the right credentials, they looked ragged or because they had a skeptical, resentful or fear-filled attitude. 

One need not be at the Cross long to know that it is a place of pain and suffering. Sometimes as the brokenness becomes unmasked it overwhelms. I recently sat beside a man in a waiting room whose entire nose was gone, replaced, for now, only by a gauze dressing and some tubing. I watched a beautiful, trendy thirty-something woman caressing the shoulder of her gaunt, pale, seemingly-near-death partner. Even those that still look like their life is intact, are silently suffering, agonizing as they let go of the life they had envisioned.  

The Cross clearly is a place of suffering, but what happens there speaks of incredible grace. Grace that allows people to hand their suffering over to another. Grace that is saturated with compassion and the assurance of never being abandoned.  Sometimes this grace is given for a complete remission from cancer and a "new" richer life can continue. Sometimes new life and healing come not in a cure, but in the healing of relationships with God and others and in finding one's true self.

Suffering and grace, forming a narrow pathway from the Cross to wholeness.

Still, I resist going to the Cross. Many days I don't want to face how broken my body actually is. Many days I don't want to be seen by others as a person who needs to be at the Cross. Many days I don't want the to see myself as having the same need for healing as every other person that has come through those doors.

 Yet, I know that my need to be at the Cross has never been greater and so it is where I reluctantly find myself this Lent.  May it be life-giving for me... and for you, that together we may keep the faith.

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*Cycle 3 continues the tightrope walk that characterizes chemo.  It tries to harm the cancer but not seriously harm the patient. So far, so good but I would ask that you pray specifically that my nerves be spared from serious damage from one of the cancer drugs and that Kathy and I be given the strength to deal with the emotions of our reality.

** The Cross Cancer Institute is named after Wallace Warren Cross (September 23, 1887 - August 4, 1973) who was a medical doctor and long serving politician from Alberta, Canada. (more HERE)