Reacting To A Medical Verdict Poem by Elizabeth Padillo Olesen

I came to wish to hear the good
I wish to be free from hospital visits
or from more slicing of the flesh.
But the doctor said, 'Yes, you must
accept our offer to help you.
Trust that medical personnels
are also agents of God's healing grace.'

So I asked for days or weeks
to think about it, to reflect on life-
its sanctity and preciousness
on why it has to be guarded or healed.
I come home to write lines
to paint colours, to touch my cat,
speak to the flowers, trees and grasses,
to smell the garden and order
the cancer cells to stop from spreading.

I laugh thinking of the preciousness
of life, the songs I have sung
or the poems I have written,
the people I have encountered
and the lives that have been blessed.
And I cry to realize that our days
are indeed numbered either by
disease or death, accident or
violence; life is a treasure
only shortly borrowed
within a short period of time.

Tears can dispel sorrow or fear
But life's challenges must
with courage be faced.
As long as we live in our borrowed time
hope dwells and never disappears.

______________
September 29,2010 (recovering some verses written during my health struggle from 2010) .