About

I am the ‘Kerry’ in this writing.

My Last Conversation with Kay about the Grove. There are several references in this blog to my presentation of my grove project in Dr. Kay Fowler’s Death & Dying class.

We didn’t see each other while she was receiving treatment for cancer but she kept a journal at Caringbridge.com to record the facts of her treatment. I read that. The idea of the online journal was that people could keep abreast of her treatment so when she actually talked to someone she would be free to talk to them of other things. However Kay being Kay she soon turned the journal into an opportunity to share her favorite poetry.

This writing comes, in part from her CaringBridge journal during her second unsuccessful attempt at harvesting stem cells four months before she died. In it she references ideas about the underground I commonly mentioned in my grove presentations …

Where we begin, Kay quotes Desert Places by Robert Frost & then says:

Nobody can evoke the empty spaces within us better than Robert Frost. His is the gift of the familiar natural image. The whole medical world pulls the opposite direction everything is unfamiliar & unnatural so to Frost I turn as my counts go on their magical journey into the underworld like all the great heroes (Oh Kerry where art thou to explain this as eloquently as you do).

My WBC hit 0.5 today but so far no fever, no infection, no mouth sores. Etc. We are all watching & defending scrupulously & putting up huge hex signs keep off the Kay. 3 or 4 more days down here on the bottom of the canyon & I shall begin to climb up & if I am really lucky some ass will give me a hand. … will sign off just asking everyone to please clap loudly & say ‘I do believe in fairies’ I’m feeling just a bit dimmed at the moment.

Having been directly addressed, I responded:

I’m right here reading every post.  Kerry.

Kay then wrote me an e-mail with this subject title A visit from a mentor in the grove.

Dearest Kerry: I am stunned & profoundly changed by your shout back to my cry de coeur in the middle of a very desolate night last night when I was holding desperately to your notion of I must travel to the deep dark depths in order to get healing & wisdom to come back. & just when I felt most abandoned & alone in this 3am quest I wake up to the reassurance that the mentor has been in the grove listening to me & waiting to me.  What an incredible gift you have just given me _ the rest of the days down here at the bottom of my counts will be a little less awful because of you. Love you & hugs. Kay

I wrote back:

Kay, That is wonderful to hear — exactly what I would have wished to offer you but would have never dared hope I could actually give. Such is the power, I guess, of conversations sustained over years: sincerely spoken in peaceful times they may resound in times of struggle.  Your support & your continual invitation to develop my work in your class, as well as the dialogue we started with the allegory class, make the words I speak half yours.

BE WELL, K

A few days later on Caring Bridge Kay again referenced the Grove image:

WHOOSH! That is the sound of the collective breath-holding that has been going on around the tri-state area &, in Montana, Minnesota, Alaska, Ireland & beyond. I have officially engrafted & am now sitting pretty with a White Blood Cell count of 1.20. re-birthday indeed Feb. 13, 2012 my re-birthday.

There is little reason to revisit the days spent in the underworld except to say that I was never alone in my journeyings. Paul … visited just before the descent & gave me extra doses of strength. Once I had begun my journey down, Bob & Sharon took nights in turn trying to get any sleep they could amidst dozens of interruptions without the benefits of pain meds Deanna came & did gentle touch & calming presence work. Geoff & I were texting throughout Christine brought her vitality & joy into the room. It stayed around for days. My quilt with the luminous faces of the wonderful women of the Moon Sisters called out to me to hold on for the flowers, the dancing, the swimming in the ocean, the gathering of the stones. The messages of love on email, & the Caring Bridge & the phone & the healing energies of the Moon Sisters & of the daily 7:30 EST healers all attached me with bands of light to the upper world. I even found one of my dearest & most cherished mentors waiting for me by his grove which helped enormously on the finding my way back to the dawn & the light.

Having made the climb out I hope I get to keep the wisdom I acquired during this period but if not “ oh well “ today is a new day! & I didn’t eat even a pomegranate seed well I just COULDN’T eat anything but either way I do not have to return to the underworld for months at a time. Nor did I look back as I came out. I do my reading I know the risks!  But I have to tell you I think what worked was that they let me go to stop me from singing not because they were moved by the beauty of my singing* I could be wrong but I just got that impression.

*Kay loved to sing but she was one of the few truly awful singers I have met.