Angels & Uncertainty.

“It’s not a brain tumor, it’s just MS.”

This is how I was told I had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

Sitting in the office of the Neurologist as she nonchalantly changed my life forever, I kept thinking how I hated the picture hanging behind her desk. The walls gray, dull, brusque, not angelic or warm, like my childhood bedroom, which was coming to mind. Hanging off-center to the right of the doctor, the generic scene of a field seems empty, even though there were some flowers among the wheat, it’s like a void. Pomegranate poppies color the beige triticum, yet I feel no life in the walls that surround this wooden frame. The grass and blossoms suspended in a barren, drab room. This Bed, Bath & Beyond painting makes me think of Demeter and Persephone. Demeter was so completely overcome with anguish over Persephone’s abduction that she created Winter. There are no gifts of grain or harvest in the season Persephone is gone to the Underworld. It’s like she left the minute I walked into this office.

 Another flash of my childhood bedroom – Wisps of silvery smoke curl and dance around her head like a foggy, gray halo. The only respite from the darkness is the dim glow of the cartoon-bear covered night-light and the periodic puffs from her Winston Red. The paper flames as she inhales, embers gleam and illuminate her cherub face before she flicks the ashes. Golden tendrils outline her milky, Irish skin. I stare at her, blue eyes glinting in the haze of motherhood, younger than I am now, not realizing I’m creating a memory in that moment. She sits, her legs in lotus position, though I know she never took a yoga class. Cigarette in one hand, a book in the other. She always has one or two, or both of these things in her hands. She doesn’t even put her butt down to turn a page.

I lay in the bed my Father built, with the pink and green flower stencil Mum painted on the headboard after the white paint dried. They were presents for me and my twin sister on our third birthday. Dad put them on opposite sides of our bedroom, so Mum could sit in the middle of the room while we fell asleep. Before I shut my eyes, I would look at the guardian angel watching over two children crossing a rickety bridge at night, hanging on the wall across the room. The angel’s thick, strawberry blonde hair draped over flowing green robes. Her massive white wings, halcyon eyes and misty, yellow halo crested with a bright star protecting the vulnerable children through the dark unknown. Then my eyes would catch Mum, “Close your eyes darling girl. It’s time for dreaming.”   

So much safety and certainty in that bedroom, so much turmoil and ambiguity in the doctor’s office. So much safety and certainty in this past February, so much turmoil and ambiguity and chaos in the months since. Having MS made the world feel less safe, because I stopped trusting my body and mind to handle the ways life can change in an instant. I had been grasping to some semblance of control, trying to do what I could to keep my mind and body moving, but now I am at a stand-still.

I am staying still, so I can move again. I am remembering the feelings of dread when I was told of my diagnosis and how I found new ways to have faith, despite the reality. I am remembering the unknowing reality of chronic illness. How each day I open my eyes to a new way of life than even the day before. My days a precarious mystery, which feels scary. This feeling brings me an unexpected sense of strength. Of preparedness. I remember the halos of angels and my mother, now replaced with strangers in blue masks and white, latex gloves. I take a deep breath and hope.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted your way of life? How has the effect of chronic illness prepared you for the uncertainty of life at the moment? Who are the angels you see? How are you having faith and holding hope?