No Onions Needed to Cry
The day after you shared the news
with me, we stood at the kitchen
island, side by side, hip to hip,
dicing tomatoes, mincing garlic.
As much as hope, we needed
routine. I needed you. It was hard
not to dwell on the what-ifs.
it was hard to focus on my slices.
It helped to close my eyes, imagine
the knife as a scalpel, each cut
a layer of tumor. Each stained
with tears, one with blood. Careful!
you cried, then held my finger
under the faucet, ran it beneath
cool water, applied a Marvel
Avengers Band-Aid. Thanks
to your gentle fingers, my skin
healed itself. So, too, the skin
across your breast. And you. And us.
As the son of a breast cancer survivor, I wrote this poem as a recollection of memory. The day my mother informed me of her cancer diagnosis, I was still a child and did not know everything the “word” cancer suggested, but I got my first sense of my mother’s own mortality and the possibility of a future without her. Yet, as she and I continued cutting up vegetables that evening, I realized that even amid illness, healing also and necessarily becomes available.
This post was written and submitted by Jonathan Fletcher. The article reflects the views of Fletcher and not of CURE®. This is also not supposed to be intended as medical advice.
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