EPILOGUE
A year after my cancer came, on the first anniversary of my operation date, I was in Mexico with my sister. We went to an agave bar with spray-painted walls and sat upstairs on a sofa with fairy lights and plants dangling down into the patio space. I poured a shot and said goodbye to my right ovary.
“You grew a tumour and tried to kill me and now you’re gone. I let you go. I’m sorry this happened.”
Then I poured another shot of the thin, sharp spirit and I said thank you to my left ovary.
“Cheers, Leftie, well done! Thank you for not taking up the cancer and growing it yourself, thank you for continuing to produce periods with such monthly regularity, thank you for continuing to maintain my hormonal balance in the face of such abdominal upheaval.”
I’d never said thank you to a part of my body before; I’d never appreciated it for working as it should, all the quiet tickings and churnings which it carried out on my behalf every second of my waking and sleeping hours. My body was so strong and worked so well I didn’t even notice how perfect it was. I’d only ever focused on the ways it failed me, the ways it wasn’t good enough, the ways I wanted it to be different.
That anniversary, when I said thank you, was the beginning of true healing; I’d spent a year doing the immediate things, the sleeping and the sit-ups, the swimming and the therapy, the gentle walks and the good food.
I realised when I was weak that I needed to stop fighting it, that I had to stop denying my vulnerability and allow it to happen. For a short but vital period of time I had to allow myself to fully feel that pain in order to recover from it.
Part of healing is acknowledging hurt, part of healing is working at getting better, and part of healing is putting that painful time behind you, seeing that you no longer have to fear it. You’re done with it; let it go, this trauma is no longer a necessary part of you.
The end of healing comes when you can acknowledge that the hurt is over now, that it has gone – and left you different.
We shall not cease from exploration