Coping with cancer through Haiku
I met my wife in the winter of 2018, she had lost her mother to cancer and she too was dealing with a new diagnosis of primary peritoneal cancer. Sensing that we had little time, I moved to where she lived (six hours away) and lived with her while she prepared for a gruelling 12 hour surgery. We got married in the winter of 2020. She is now six years on and her cancer is stable, though this can change and we live from scan to scan. These are a collection of Haikus I devote to a very special woman.
Each Haiku has it’s own title starting with Oncological News.
Haiku 1
Oncological News
O Sweet Wife!
News of creeping cellular change
What now, What now?
Haiku 2
The Bucket List
Please don’t admit
A need for a list to submit
For before…(retreat)!
Haiku 3
The Impotent Carer
What use am I?
But a hand to hold in times
Of anguish and pain
Haiku 4
Apathy
Cells without pathos
Advance their armies forward
Never with a thought
Haiku 5
Mnemonsyne
O Mnemosyne!
Fill each darken’d, empty vault
So she may run free
Haiku 6
How are you?
Good natures inquire
Of truths better left unsaid
Can they understand?
Conclusion
I have written more verses than these, but some are private and some are being devoted to a book of Haikus all exploring the theme of cancer.
