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Cancer

by Johanna Morrigan

Once a young girl child... dreaming of a day when life would be solid and safe like the grand old elm in the backyard at the farm....

Once a young woman... dreaming of a day when the rot surrounding my heart would finally loosen its grip and I might actually become a person who could walk tall and know that I had a right to be here...

Once a middle aged woman... finally putting flesh and sinew on those dreams of long ago...

Now an older woman ... who thought she knew who she was. But time has passed into the present and become the past again...

And once again I yearn for what wasn't, for what won't be...and for what finally was...

Be gone you demons who are never satiated...

Be still you ghost of a haunted past with your maniacal laughter, "See, I told you so..."

The elders and crones say to let it go and stay with the moment.

And with each moment I catch myself yearning for the one gone by, or the one that never happened, or the one I fear will never arrive...

Then I see the elm tree in the backyard at the farm...

Johanna Morrigan is a survivor of breast cancer and incest. She finally realized a lifelong dream of helping other victims of childhood abuse when she was 44. At the age of 62, she was diagnosed with Stage IIlC ovarian cancer. She continues to battle that disease, but is no longer able to work in the field of her dreams.