It’s dark in cancer town when we get up. Toast, Kim, and Paula walk me from the hotel to the hospital. We are all dazed from Valium. They are holding me by my arms, propping me up, and no one is saying a word. I feel like Gary Gilmore on his way to being executed at Utah State Prison. I believe he was killed by a firing squad, four shots to his heart. This could easily be my last morning, and there isn’t even any bloody sun. My final memory will be the last thing resembling beauty, the faux Pakistani carpets in the Marriott Hotel lobby. It’s dark in Tumor Town, but it’s prime time, busy. There are so many of us online at 4:30 a.m. that it feels like the airport. The crowd is midwestern and overweight, starving and empty from last night’s enemas and cleansers. The Mayo workers are way too cheerful for this time of day. But here in the Cancer Airways terminal there is no time. There are just the sick and the people who help the sick, the people who are about to be put to sleep and the ones who will put them to sleep. There are the madly chipper airline workers and the rest of us who are all going somewhere with our matching plastic heart-you ID bracelets but who are not so sure if and how we’re coming back.
I relinquish my clothes and my jewelry and attempt to wrap myself in the skimpy hospital gown. I find some comfort in the bare cotton blankets. After endless bathroom trips from the final enema, and after I have tried not to worry my friends by being too dramatic and saying things like, “If I don’t come back, please give my books to …,” they come to wheel me away. As I climb onto the gurney, I understand why you don’t walk into the operating room. Your bare legs just wouldn’t take you there. There is no one going with me on this trip. This one’s on my own. This one is the big one.
I see Toast and Kim and Paula waving. I flash them the V and give them the best smile I can and I close my eyes. I am standing in the wide-open field in Panzi at City of Joy in Bukavu. It is right after one of those mad Congo downpours. The Earth is wet and green and now the sun is just breaking out. The mountains are in the distance. I see the buildings are finished. I see the women strong and moving from class to class. They are becoming leaders and revolutionaries. I see them cooking and dancing. Mama C and Dr. Mukwege are greeting me. Alisa is there and Jeanne and Alfonsine and Mama Bachu. I have made a promise. That is all that matters. Keeping my promise. I do not think about all the people who are suddenly standing around the gurney in masks and gowns with needles and machines and tape. I do not think about what they will find inside me, that I could wake up with a death sentence or never wake up. I do not think that my mother is not there and my father is dead. I do not even notice how much I am shivering from the freezing cold. I am in Bukavu. It is hot there. I am in the sun. I keep my promises.
You must be firmly resolved. Do not begrudge your fief; do not think of your wife and children. And do not depend on others. You must simply make up your mind. The reason that you have survived until now when so many have died was so that you would meet with this affair. This is where you will cross the Uji River. This is where you will ford the Seta. This will determine whether you win honor or disgrace your name. This is what is meant when it is said that it is difficult to be born as a human being, and that it is difficult to believe in the Lotus Sutra. You should pray intently that Shakyamuni, Many Treasures and the Buddhas of the ten directions will all gather and enter into your body to assist you.
The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, Volume 1