The Appeal

Mt Toby Retreat at Woolman Hill, 2012

It is quite early, I've been sitting on the porch of the meeting house (the same building as pictured here) at Woolman Hill. The sun is just rising as the fog is lifting. There is a riot of birds. They flit from place to place, making any manner of sounds. Chirps, chats and caws, whistles and songs fill the air. Woodpeckers are doing their work at different pitches and tempos. There is so much bird racket that an ornithologist would be challenged to name them all.

Sitting here I am also remembering the appeal Rahima made to the Quaker community in this building on the closing day of a weekend retreat (January 27-29, 2012) for the members and friends of the Mount Toby Meeting of Friends in nearby Leverett, Massachusetts where I attend and Rahima visited from time to time.

The retreat occurred on the weekend of my 49th birthday, so I made a request of Rahima. Instead of an elaborate party—she was a great party planner—I simply wanted to attend the retreat together, all weekend. This was a sacrifice for Rahima since it involved giving up contra dancing. In her adaptive way, Rahima brought a big cake to share and planned a fun dance for folks at the retreat.

As it happened, leading up to the retreat we received the devastating news that the "triple-negative" breast cancer for which Rahima had been treated had metastasized. First, on January 20, we read the results of the brain scan that showed areas of concern. Then on January 27, my birthday, a PET scan showed conclusively that the disease had spread throughout Rahima's body. Not only the brain was involved, but the lungs, liver and bones.

We carried this news into the retreat. Only two women, Mary and Margaret, knew our burden. They were like attending angels to us the whole weekend.

Rahima was greatly concerned for herself, but also for the other participants in the retreat. Should she share or not? By the time of the closing circle the answer was clear to her.

The retreat concluded with a group sharing. Going from person to person around the room, we were instructed to say our name, to whom we were going home, and what the retreat meant to us. The line of speakers meandered around the room. It became apparent that I would be the last to speak, and Rahima the next to last. It was then that Rahima looked at me and mouthed the words, "I want to share." I gave a knowing smile and nodded.

When Rahima's turn came, instead of standing in place as the other's had done, she moved to a raised step near the center of the gathering and spoke, the sunlight touching her auburn hair. The two angels, Mary and Margaret, had been sitting in front of and beside us. When Rahima rose to speak, they seized me.

I don't remember what I said at all or most of what Rahima said apart from telling her truth: her body was now riddled with cancer and she was facing death soon. However, I will always remember her appeal: "Hold the pieces of Andy's shattered heart until he can put them back together."

She recognized that I have found my spiritual home among the Friends (Quakers) and she, in her time of great suffering, was showing me the greatest compassion. My wellbeing was her concern.

Afterwards, a sixteen-year-old girl came up to Rahima and said: "You are the bravest person I have ever met." I agree.

My heart is full of wonder and gratitude.

~Andy

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If you were there at the close of the retreat, please help me with details of your experience. What exactly did Rahima say? What did I say? How were you affected by this event?

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A Paperless Marriage

Carnegie Hall
Feb. 2, 2012

Yet another lesson from my time with Rahima: "Better to keep a vow not made than to make a vow not kept." I offer this not as a knock against the institution of marriage or my previous two marriages. Rather, I am writing it down here as an affirmation, a discovery that is consistent with my intent to live with my feet on the ground and my eyes and heart open.

From the start, I knew that Rahima was special. We had only been dating two weeks when I asked her to move in with me. She thought that was a crazy idea. So I said, "May I ask you again tomorrow?"

About six months later, during her treatment after the initial cancer diagnosis, she did join me in the second-floor apartment I was renting on Madison Circle. After an initial adjustment period, that arrangement went swimmingly well, shattering one of my personal myths that I may be likable but I'm impossible to live with. Rahima loved living with me. Moving together to the house that she purchased on Haywood Street was a natural next step.

We got together in the spring of 2009 and we never spoke openly about marriage until the terminal diagnosis in January 2012. "This would have been a great marriage," I said ruefully one day. Or, "My most successful marriage wasn't, on paper anyway." In our recent sharing, she told me she had a startling vision of us as a married couple in a former life. Should she survive, we both saw it in our future.

Nonetheless, in truth we met the standard of a healthy marriage:

• fidelity—"I will never leave you" was her mantra to me, especially in the early days
• deep friendship—we actually liked each other's company, it was easy to be together for hours
• comfort—we created a home space that was comfortable for us and our loved ones; our children felt secure and happy with us; we delighted in welcoming people into our home for parties, groups and get-togethers
• communication—learning to listen well was a top priority for both of us; we worked ceaselessly at the risky task of speaking truth in love
• spiritual grounding—we shared a sense of transcendence and sought to enliven the spirit within 
• forbearance—"great forgiveness, great compassion" was a catch phrase for our interpersonal work, and we faced hardship well together
• love—she showed me exquisite tenderness in body, mind and spirit
• fun—we delighted in doing countless activities together

I am most grateful to have succeeded with Rahima in the realm that marriage attempts to codify, in effect to have had a "paperless marriage."

A deeper paradox for me is that the acknowledgement of Rahima's terminal condition, first to the Society of Friends, then the Amandla Chorus and ultimately at her memorial service, had the effect of a wedding announcement in the presence of beloved friends and family. In these sacred circles, a testimony of our great love was held in community. Further, Rahima expected that I would find such a love again after her passing. These observations are all rather confusing to my conventional mind, but wonderful just the same.

~Andy

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What does marriage mean to you?

The Photograph

This photograph was taken on November 14, 2009, not long after a malignant lump was discovered in Rahima's right breast. We had been together six months and were on a trip to Canandaigua, New York to visit her best friend, Lois, whom she had not yet told the alarming news.

When I made this photo, Rahima complained that it was obvious she had been crying so I culled it out of my collection.

It has become my favorite picture of Rahima. This was a beloved place that she wanted me to see, Taughanock Falls near Ithaca. She is radiant and with a full mane of auburn hair. There is water. A lens flare adds a touch of magic. I recognize Rahima's strength, beauty and tenderness.

The photograph also marks the beginning of our saga, the discovery of the illness, triple-negative breast cancer, that would later take her life.

This is the Rahima with whom I had fallen deeply in love. I long for the innocence of the time before the diagnosis and the potential we felt; yet I am open to the lessons of this more arduous path. We loved each other well to the end.

~Andy

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What does this photograph evoke for you?

Final Journal Entry

In her Hippocrates journal, Rahima wrote:

Mar. 17, 2012 

Sometimes this seems so hard (and the probability of my dying anyway, so clear) that I think, hey, screw all this. I think I will just take it easy, eat what I want and go more easily toward death.
And then it all shifts again and I dream about marrying Andy, having a long and active life, seeing my children get married, having grandchildren.
And then that becomes a tidal wave crashing over me, telling me that it's a fool's dream.
Two things seem clear (beyond wanting to live — which is also clear).

1. I need some joy to my days — whether I am doing the program or not.
2. I want some clarity soon. I am praying for it. Either a turning in my health improving OR a clear sign that death is coming.

This proved to be Rahima's final journal entry. We returned home to Greenfield, Massachusetts, and the symptoms of her metastatic breast cancer intensified, mainly overall weakness and diminishing capacity to breathe. She had her sign. Rahima died at home at 10:54 P.M. on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. We are still in the afterglow of a community memorial service that was held yesterday. In the summer, her ashes will be scattered in the sea at her "mermaid put-in spot" in Scituate, Massachusetts where she was raised.

Earlier in the Hippocrates journal, Rahima outlined the book that she planned to write: "Embracing Life: How to Live With a Terminal Diagnosis." If she beat the odds of dying from triple-negative metastatic breast cancer—what she described as a speck of sand on the beach—she envisioned a new consultant career, inspiring people to live well in the face of death.

Rahima did live well, exceedingly. This blog is my attempt to illuminate just how she lived. It is mainly for myself that I undertake this work. I sorely want to remember how Rahima loved me, how she loved life.

I recognize too that there is a community that formed around the concern for Rahima's health, first with the fractured hip that mended and then with the progression of the disease that took her life. I am willing to continue that conversation, to share with you what I have seen and learned, and I am open to continuing the conversation.

Our CaringBridge journal began on February 7, 2011, after Rahima slipped on the ice on the way to a contra dance and severely fractured her left hip. It traces her recovery process to the point of a near-complete healing without surgery. The story continues on February 1, 2012 in the aftermath of medical findings that breast cancer for which she was previously treated had metastasized. In this fourteen-month period there were more than 15,000 visits to the site, mostly in the last two months.

~Andy