of healing . . .

It's been 40 years since I lost my father to cancer . . . six years since my child embarked on a cancer survivor's journey . . . I've bought and displayed the showy purple ribbon, donated to cancer research, worn the t-shirt, decorated a luminary or two. What I could never bring myself to do, until this year, was to join, with others like me, others whose lives have been changed by that "C' word, to remember and to honor those who have fought the good fight for living and dying well . . .

I did not purchase or decorate a luminary this year. But, for the first time (forgive me, Daddy), I chose to celebrate my survivor child by joining a Relay for Life Team. The experience was a healing one in many ways--rediscovering old friends whose lives had also been touched in this way, walking and walking and walking and walking some more, sending prayers up to heaven on purple balloon ribbons . . . But, most of all, in the quiet dark of night, reflecting in the flickering candlelight presence of those gone before us and those still with us . . .

Elysium . . .

From first memory, I have been enchanted by the bittersweet love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The twists and turns of Orpheus' journey to the Underworld in search of his lost-to-this-life love--finding her at last only to lose her once again--have blurred over the years . . . I have often wondered where, in this story of love lost, found, and lost again, Gluck's haunting "Minuet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits" belonged.

Today I went in search of that answer: Elysium. When Orpheus is at last granted passage into the Underworld, he is taken to Elysium, where the blessed spirits of the good and the heroic spend their eternity. It is there, as he searches for Eurydice, who must eventually be found and brought to him, that a solo flute speaks of love and pain, hope and loss, joy and grief . . .

I was reminded of the importance of faith--unconditional faith, trust, hope, love--in rereading their story. If they had only believed--each in the other's love, in their collective ability to survive the test of separation, of parallel journeys--they would have once again been together this side of Elysium . . .

If only . . .