Page 286 - She's One Crazy Lady!

of bristle. Then, embarrassment gone and with a new determination, we were off and everyone was painting with sheer ferocity – no time to chat as children would... we were on a mission!
“Stop! – put your paintbrushes down – and breathe...”
We looked at one another, all feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“In your groups, I’d like you, individually, to talk about your painting.”
(I understood how children felt when put on the spot – and later, how volunteers must have felt when I would suddenly ask them to say a few words at a talk I was giving!)
One of our group offered to go first and bravely showed us her masterpiece. It was very colourful. A black dot was in the middle of the page with concentric circles, all different colours, spreading out to the edges.
“My soul,” she said, “is in the centre, look, it’s the black dot and that’s my cancer. The colours around the dot are all my friends and family and all the medical people who helped me get out of the cancer rut into brighter things.”
Another lady had painted a mountain that zig-zagged up and down both sides, one side dark, one light side. At the top of the mountain she had painted herself. She’d climbed up the dark side and was very, very keen, but tentative – waiting – so wanting to climb down the lighter side – her soul being in the hands of the Gods as she wasn’t sure if her treatment was working and what she was facing.
Powerful stuff!
It was my turn. Mine – like everybody’s – was different. I had painted a picture of a path winding through the trees and bluebells at Sywell Country Park with a bright sun shining through the trees – a park that I loved to walk round and where I thought at one time I would like my ashes to be scattered (from a Harrod’s carrier bag none the less!) with those of my darling cat – Tigger. Tigger was in the painting, sitting under the bench I was sitting on, telling me I was going to be OK... that we were not going to be together again for a long time but he would always be with me...
Tigger was my soul.
Where on earth had all this come from – in just seven minutes? What had Michele done to us? We were all in tears. The emotion of us having had, or living with cancer was pouring out. Michele reassured us our tears were healthy and much needed and our conversations were respected and important. Getting together for our evening meal, everyone in the group had brought their paintings along wanting to continue to share their stories with us and with other delegates at the Conference who, by now, had heard of our emotional, yet uplifting session. We agreed unanimously, that talking so personally about our own cancer was a kind of release valve – and we were so very proud that we had dared to show our work!
“Most of all I need to know, that you know, that within my body there is me.” (Michele)
“What had Michele done to us? We were all in tears.
The emotion
of us having had, or living with cancer was pouring out.”
286