you can listen to the audio of this post above.
req·ui·em
/ˈrekwēəm/
noun
- (especially in the Roman Catholic Church) a Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead.
an act or token of remembrance.
“Bleed until your heart becomes a river of possibility and a reservoir of fierce grace.” Frieda Kahlo
It’s a bloody thing, a womb,
and mine is gone.
The scar slices vertically –
soft pink where once there was angry red.
splitting me in half
splitting my life in half.
I bled first, at ten
only a few drops
embarrassing me completely
shyly telling the grandmother
who was caring for me
that I needed products.
Somewhere around three hundred and twenty four times
my body prepared to bear a child
three hundred and twenty four times that preparation ended in blood
the reality? messy.
cycles missed, diagnoses found
this isn’t normal –
I’ve never been normal.
begging, pleading for help
one supposed healer told me I was angry
when I wouldn’t accept her lack of solution
when I pointed out that her medicine
had already made me sick
maybe I was angry
maybe I should have been angry
my voice as a woman
my knowing of my body
was being denied
no one listened
NO. ONE. LISTENED.
until someone did
to placate me, yes,
but still, she listened
“we found a mass,
but we think it’s nothing,
but we’ll get an MRI”
a broken system means
a four month wait until
sedated, I lay on the table and beg
Hail Mary, full of Grace
Hail Mary
Hail Mary
Hail Mary
in rhythm with the banging of the machine
it’s the only prayer that will fall from my lips.
it seems right, somehow,
to beg the intercession of a woman
“the mass is irregular
and we’re worried now”
my world speeds up and then halts
I am parked beside a funeral home
pulled over to answer the ringing phone
“we think it’s cancer
the numbers are high
we want them under one hundred
yours are thirteen hundred”
a friend, a palliative care nurse,
hears this number and is speechless
offering tears and a hug, and this
unfamiliar treatment from her
tells me more than any doctor
“we think it’s cancer”
my world is racing now
instruments slipped through the cervix
into my womb for biospy, to rule out other cancer
“we need to operate
sooner than later.
do you still want children?”
Do I still want children?
I’m thirty seven, single,
a geriatric mother by medical standards
but yes, a thousand times yes
I still want children.
I built a career on this,
this love of babies.
Since childhood I’ve dreamed
of feeling the butterfly movements
of a child growing beneath my ribs
I never dreamed of cancer
of a baseball sized growth
that might threaten my life.
I sign the consent –
take my womb if necessary
Please God, let it not be necessary.
Surgery will be in four to eight weeks
says the fellow
except
I think we should operate sooner than later
says the oncologist
It is just over a week
the oncologist used his influence
and I am on the operating table for the first time
stretched cruciform, I pray again,
Hail Mary,
but also, knowing Christ with me,
a nearness for which there are no words.
I wake and wonder.
my womb has been spared
it is not cancer but
has potential to come back
more sinister than before
and my womb, they say,
“it needs to go by forty”
I’m weeks from turning thirty-eight
I wait and pray again,
once again seeking the intercession of a woman
St. Gianna, this time, who had her own uterine tumor
I wait and pray and beg
I want more than a half-way miracle
it’s not cancer
but it will still cost me my womb
my ability to bear life
that butterfly of movement beneath my ribs
that I’d dreamed of
will never become reality.
the doctor will be relieved, she says
she showed her hand.
they never show their hand.
I am relieved.
I made the right decision.
I have given my fiat,
my “let it be done.”
Eight days before thirty eight
I am once again cruciform on a table
this time annoyed at the nurse who
WON’T. STOP. TALKING.
Let me fall asleep in peace
leave me to pray and grieve
in peace.
This time when I wake,
menopause.
It’s a seemingly innocuous word
a pause, a rest.
such a simplistic way to describe the end
the end of my childbearing years
the end of my closely held dream
Cut short with the steel of a scalpel
a harsh ending.
A new beginning?
The scar marks eight vertical inches
cutting my soft flesh in two
cutting my life in two.
From life-giving potential
to emptiness
in the blink of an eye
From new life to old hag
old sage
wise woman?
My soul is slow to catch up.
All the menopause books speak of the transition
of perimenopause, of the learning it brings
I am denied this slow transition
Mine is fierce
harsh
cutting
instant
It still seems right
to ask the intercession of a woman
I pray to the Queen of Sorrows
for empathy and relief
My soul is slow to catch up.
I have no womb –
the dream has died.
It’s been a year, and yet,
every month I expect the bleeding
it never comes
three hundred and twenty four cycles or so
and then nothing.
Lisa From Canada 