Water From The Well

Canaanite Woman by Drouais

I was sitting outside yesterday (Labor Day) eating a hamburger and chips about 10 feet from my hummingbird feeder. Adam and Eve (the name I gave to the 2 regulars) were flying in and out chasing each other around the trees. Adam almost always land on the perch to sip the nectar. Even rarely does preferring to sip while still flying. One time something unique and special happened. After taking a swig, Adam flew over toward me and hovered about 3 feet from me and just looked at me face to face. Of course, I have no idea what was going through his pea size brain. I have had hummingbirds sip nectar from flowers that I was holding. Nevertheless, this was the first time one actually looked into my eyes. Whatever the reason for this behavior, it took a lot of courage on this little bird’s part. He dared to stare down something at least 1000 times his size.

Cancer makes us to have to stare down something that physically is much smaller than we are but much larger in its impact on use in all other ways. I know it takes all the courage I can muster to hang in there. It is so much easier to write about this now that I am in remission rather than when the cancer is acting up. Certainly there are many sources of support we can draw from but a lot of it has to come from the reservoirs deep within us. Despite what we might feel, we have one. Sometimes life situations have made this reservoir hard to reach. That is when friends, family, and even our medical teams help. I do not see it as them giving us courage. Rather I see it as them helping us to access the courage that is already there. Like someone drawing water from a deep well, the water has always been there but needs help coming to the surface.

29 Velha Igreja em Parnaiba, Piauí