Rose's Son Has Cancer

I have friends that are precious to me, but that I have never met.
They came to me by Divine Collision.

God knew Jennifer,
God knew Rose,
so that through social-network-creation, we became
friends.

In the fullness of time,
not knowing it was intended from the beginning,
our lives were twined together so that I could be
friend to Rose,
a mother with a son who has cancer.

Now I have a son with cancer too, his name is Ben.
And Ben is a father himself, and will be so again for the third time soon.
And together with Rose I hold up the moon in the night above his bed
so that the scary monsters stay away and he may sleep,
so that his arms will be strong to hold his arriving child.

We know a lot about scary monsters,
and diapers,
and spilled milk,
and Bandaids,
and grass-stained jeans,
because
we are mothers.

We know that tears happen to boys as well as girls,
that frogs are delightful,
that you can never pick up all the Legos,
and that girls who have cooties now, will be the reason for car keys to be needed soon.

When we became mothers, we joined a great circle of Divine Daughters that has spiraled from the First Mother
through all mothers to join us together as one.
Through water,
through blood,
through sweat,
through agony personal, and yet known by the circling Daughters of dawn,
we brought forth our sons.

We are one mother.
They are one son.
My Ben has cancer, and my heart is not strong.


Strength comes to those who need to race.
Our strength will carry us through this because we were the champions of 12 and 2 and 4 and 6,
and we never slept at all during the week of the flu,
and because we could find the lost socks,
and keep the kite in the sky,
and make spaghetti five different ways,
and sit through the game not shouting anything (too) embarrassing.

Our strength comes from the waiting and the dreaming during the months that our son grew inside our body's nest of flesh and love.
We grew so beautiful and we grew so wise
and we grew strong to greet the needy mouths and fingers and imaginations of our son.

And my son Ben's mother Rose,
now,
has the strength of the Divine Daughters as her labor continues to intensify and she keens with the pain.
And I and all the others will be her strong arms of encouragement
and midwife her through her pain.

Rose has a son who is my joy. He has cancer now. His name is Ben.