Unexpected Grace

The day we met, David preferred to remain a two-inch blacked-out Zoom box on my screen. He hadn’t wanted to be there at all, but his wife Sophie, who clearly cared about him, signed him up for our six-week story circle where cancer patients would share their stories and perhaps write with the intention of healing and moving forward.

Perhaps I imagined it, but when I asked David to introduce himself to our class, his black box seemed to shake with rage. “I am a forty-year-old mess,” he explained to twenty other participants with their cameras on. “I don’t want you to see me. I have brain cancer, and it has destroyed my life. First surgery. Now chemo.” Suddenly the box seemed to stand still. Go silent. Then David tried to speak, choked on his words, and mumbled, “I don’t know how much more I can take.” Then we heard a sob.

“It’s okay,” I said gently. “We often need tears—”

“But—why is this happening to me?” he blurted. “I am a teacher. I try to do good things. Why me?” While we couldn’t see him, we heard his soft sobs and felt his deep-seated turmoil.

After David we met dark-haired Sylvia from the Bay Area who sounded sad as she explained she had two boys and was facing an unexpected recurrence of breast cancer.  John was a tight-faced exec who had trouble looking at us as he explained he had not factored advanced colon cancer into his life, but he said he was holding up. We made our way around the boxes to the last student who popped her mic and spoke with the airiness of Tinkerbell.

“Hi.  I’m Cathy.  I, too, was surprised by metastatic breast cancer, and I know my odds are not good, but I accept that.” She looked across the gallery of our faces and shared a heartwarming smile with us. “I’m here to learn all I can in the time I have.” The light shined on her bald head and her words seemed to lift us up as they floated across our Zoom room.  “I want to live, I mean really live, while I can.” And her young voice resonated like a soft song, perhaps of a nightingale. She spoke gently like a poet, a youthful Mary Oliver. Her eyes sparkled and the light from a lamp in her room highlighted the shininess of her bald head. In that moment I wanted to reach out through the screen and hug this beautiful person. This Cathy.

Then something surprising happened. David popped his video and mic on, and he appeared in his little box on our screen. “Cathy, how old you?” he asked. Then he self-consciously tugged down his red ski cap to hide his baldness and raised his bushy black eyebrows.  “Is it okay to ask?”

Laughing gently Cathy clicked her mic back on. “Twenty-three, twenty-four in March.”

“Wow!” David looked awestruck. “I want to thank you. You are about half my age!  When I look at your beautiful bald head with the light shining on it, you are so calm and to think you, too, are facing . . .  .” He couldn’t finish the sentence, but he started again. “Thank you. I know I can learn from you.” In coming weeks, David did learn from Cathy. From all of us. And he never turned his camera off again.

While there is more to the story, the season is rushing at me, and I want to pause to remember just this moment. For sometimes when life feels impossible or maybe you realize you feel caught up in the stresses of the season, there are moments that slip into our lives and change us. Moments that truly matter. Moments that give us perspective on what is truly important.

Sometimes the inexplicable slices through the darkness. Someone’s words, the sound of their voice, a smile, or the light shining on their bald head can capture us unexpectedly and leave us floating, awash in joy.

Cathy, amid a battle for her young life, was showing us how to paint the world in stunning shades. She had joy for the moments she had. She had a curiosity that propelled her to keep learning. Her words were colored in hope—and she wrapped that around us.

Perhaps a moment like this is a glimmer. Perhaps it is grace. But whatever energy slips through the darkness and taps us on the shoulder, leaving us moved and possibly changed, it is worth remembering. It is a great gift. Maybe the most important gift we can give or receive.

So as we go about the hustle and bustle of this season, my wish for you is simple. May your holidays be rich in moments of joy, hope, and unexpected grace.