5 Things Cancer Taught Me

Hi. So, I was probably drunk on the 5^th anniversary of my surgery. I had friends over for charcuterie and reminiscing about what my life held because I got to experience it the past five years. Anyways, I wasn’t in the right state of mind at that time to make a post like this so here you go.

1. How to belly laugh

One of the first things my current boyfriend said to me on our first date was how much he loved my laugh. And I have cancer to thank for that. This one was in my post for year four as well because it’s so dang true. “She laughs without fear of the future” in Proverbs 31 is real. I have looked death in the face and can say that Jesus truly is stronger. Therefore I have reason to laugh at the tiniest things. If you’re around me for much time, you’ll hear me laughing, not because life isn’t hard, but because it is. Joy is our buoyancy.

2. How to cry

While I did learn the importance of a good belly laugh, I also learned how holy tears are. This year I learned that Jews during Jesus’ time collected their tears in glass vials (I forget the reason why except that it was because they revered tears) so when the woman “wept” at Jesus’ feet, it very well could have meant that she broke her lifelong vial at his feet. Weeping is holy. As Rumi and so many great sages have said, the broken places are how the light gets in. I cry easy now. And I’m not ashamed because I’ve looked death in the face and seen that Jesus truly is stronger. I can cry because he was weak for me, because he wept too. Let ‘em flow, y’all. Let ‘em flow.

3. I’m not that important

No, I don’t have a self-esteem issue. I just see clearly that I am one of billions of suffering, laughing, loving people that God cares about and that it is important to count others as more important than yourself. My mom’s nickname for me growing up was H.M.D.Q.—High Maintenance Drama Queen. But I can honestly say that’s changed because I’ve looked death in the face and seen that Jesus truly is stronger. I don’t have to be the center of attention. I find myself much more comfortable on the outskirts of the room at a party listening to the stories of whoever wants to tell me theirs than being in the middle with all eyes on me like I used to. I don’t have to be first place because Love is first place in God’s economy, not me.

4. Love is the reason for everything

I’ve always thought that Love was the magnificent ether, the Grand Unified Theory. But now I know it’s true and I don’t have to try wildly to convince anybody. It just is. Here’s a clip from a great movie from 2016 called Collateral Beauty: click here

5. Our time here is short but important

We don’t all get a full life (although I recently heard a report that the number of centenarians is exploding). Jack Pearson’s death is enough to teach us that *quiet sob. But our time here affects our eternity and everybody else’s. I can’t explain it but I just know how interconnected it all is now. We’re all connected: from the newborn baby to the dying chain-smoker. Your life matters, infinitely. I wish I could tell you how I know this but I guess you just have to trust that my glimpse beyond the veil afforded me this knowledge. Pay attention to how you treat people.

There you go. There’s my great wisdom of the age of 24, 5 years after I looked death in the eyes and saw that Jesus truly is stronger.

*Bonus point

Don’t be so certain about what you hold to be certain. Test your beliefs (or whatever you want to call them). If they’re true, they’ll hold true; don’t sweat it. And if not, do you really want to live in a way that isn’t true?

Hope In Some Strange Way

I’m sitting up in bed, having just had dinner and helping my dad sand the knots out of his latest wooden boat. I’m one glass of wine and two 1 mg klonopin in (this is not recommended but it’s getting me through this very moment of deep sadness). I put on Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens (yeah, that guy is a genius). Since I was 16 years old that song has helped me process my grief, and even more so after my own bout of cancer. I am sad tonight.

I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because I’m a manic-depressive. I went to Philly for three days, which was a high, and now I crashed. Yes, that could be it. I don’t process change from normal, daily life very well. Or, I could just be sad like millions of other humans are right now. I don’t need the special label of bipolar.

Anyways, I guess I’ll share a memory here since you all have shared your time in this microcosm of infinity with me.

I had come out of an eight our surgery successfully (I was a dashing youth with a body in good physical condition to endure the rigors). And I was doing one of my three daily walks around the ICU ward, IV pole in tow. When I was stopped cold, dead in my tracks. “I’m sorry,” said a male nurse casually yet sympathetically. An elderly Asian man stood next to an empty hospital bed with a woman’s cardigan in his hand. Next to him, I assume, his son was standing. I put it all together within an instant: their beloved wife and mother had passed on just two doors down from me. What had I been doing when she died? Complaining of pain probably. I did a lot of that. Or maybe blogging. Or maybe it was the Fourth of July when my two childhood friends came and watched the wicked nurse force me to get into bed from my wheelchair without any assistance: “It will speed up the healing process,” she said. And my friends, decked in red, white, and blue gear cried. Watching me pitifully struggle to go from sitting to lying down. Why, in America, do we place such precedence on efficiency. Couldn’t I give my body time to heal? Probably not enough beds. So, maybe that’s what I was doing when she passed.

My life profoundly changed after seeing the helpless, hopeless look in the husband’s eyes. It changed me forever. Seeing grief up close for the first time at 18 years old, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, with an excellent prognosis and Virginia Tech on the vista of my near future. I won’t be cliché. But seeing the fragility of life really does change you. I have never been the same since that moment. An internal shift. Goggles to see life the way it really is. Perspective. Pain. Real pain.

I guess the first time I had really experienced pain was when my mom told me that her and my dad were getting a divorce and she was moving out in two weeks. I screamed, shouted, hit the wall over and over, and sobbed. My worst fear at the ripe old age of 14 had been realized. I remember sitting in our dark sitting room (which we never actually sat in) in the formal red chair listening to my ipod that night. On repeat: Cape Canaveral by Conor Oberst. Man, I had good taste in music. Lol. I’m just messing with you. My sister, five years younger than me, came in and asked what I was doing; she didn’t know yet. I told her nothing and to go away now. I remember two weeks later holding a sobbing nine-year-old in my arms as she was forced for the first time to choose between staying with mommy or daddy. Oh, my sweet girl, my little sister, for whom I would do anything. I can’t stand to see her cry to this day. It’s like it breaks of a piece of my soul, a horcrux in each tear shed.

Anyways, enough rambling. This nice little stream of consciousness was more for me to process my emotions than anything else. But I hope it helped you, or gave you hope in some strange way.

Nihilism and Christianity

It’s 3:10am on May 19, 2019. I’m listening to my favorite album of all time “Stay Gold” by First Aid Kit. It came out in 2014 and its nihilistic lyrics put words to my traitorous Christian thoughts for the first time, to beautiful melodies, as a gift. Oh yeah, I had a panic attack today in public today that triggered a manic episode for me, so yeah, no sleep. I’m not tired at all. So I just find things to do while the normal people sleep.

Nihilism is an interesting party topic, but to really study it is a great joy. Nihilism appeared in 1817 defined as “the doctrine of negation.” From Latin nihil “nothing at all.” The term has ties to the Russian Revolution. I have experienced the unrequited (on His part) love of God. I just know it and He is real. But if I weren’t a Christian, and even as a Christian, I lean extremely towards the nihilistic side of life. I don’t think there’s a problem with this as long as I am willing to weep at the feet of Jesus in gratitude.

I can’t tell you how many klonopin I’ve taken to fall asleep, sweet sleep, away from the suffering. (And don’t worry, I am well under the overdose margin; I am not trying to kill myself, so please don’t be alarmed.) I’m on my third glass of wine (over three hours). But I pour heavy, and the bottle’s empty. There’s a great Andrew Bird lyric that come’s from his song, “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas,” that goes, “Listen to me, butterfly, There’s only so much wine, That you can drink, In one life, To save you from the bottom of your glass.” I love that affront to the numbing of the pain of true nihilism. You see, most people aren’t true nihilist’s; they’re existentialists. I’m not knocking existentialism, but coming up with your own meaning to life is different then embracing the vast wasteland of life.

I am mad at God. I truly wish this wasn’t the case; I do devotionals and read books by devout Christian authors, but I can’t shake my rage at the sufferings of this chaotic, lonely planet. Let alone my own sufferings. So, to the utter dismay of my Christian friends, I fall asleep embracing the Chaos. Or I completely numb myself with drink and dance and end up somewhere safe every night, God only knows how. I know there’s a God. I’ve irrevocably felt him in the depths of my core. But sometimes it’s easier to embrace what seems utterly obvious, that “shit gets fucked up and people just disappear” (to quote a First Aid Kit song) then to have the integrity to uphold the goodness of God. I admire you, you followers of Christ, who can live, day in and day out with no questions, but that’s not me. That’s never been me. I do believe; help my unbelief.

Why I Study Arabic

It all started with a book, but quickly became much bigger. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2014 and my life was marked by the beauty and tragedy of life in Central Asia (Afghanistan). Come summer semester 2015 at Virginia Tech, I had enrolled in an Arabic class. At the time, I mistakenly thought that Arabic was spoken in Afghanistan, but it was a happy mistake that I would never take back.

Arabic is by far the hardest undertaking of my life; they have 15 ways to say everything and the poet in me longs to know the nuance of each variation, but it would be an impossible task apart from complete immersion in an Arabic-speaking country which isn’t feasible for me at this time. As I’ve thought about this post, I realized that it isn’t the language itself that keeps me going (although, I, for one, think it to be the most beautiful language in the world)… it’s the people I’ve met and grown to love along the way.

It started with my very first professor, Dr. Azzam. He was a devout Muslim that was constantly trying to make us see the error of our Christian ways, but boy, when he laughed, time stopped for a moment and you knew everything was going to be alright.

Then there was the venerable Dr. Ragheda Nasserdine, the oldest of my three professors. She required more from us than Dr. Azzam and for that I thank her. She lived through the Lebanese Civil War but carried herself in such a way that you would never know it. Maybe that’s the reason she carried herself with such dignity. She knew she was tough, but she had nothing to prove. She was elegant and made fun of me constantly: “Why are you making that face when you say that letter?” I’m glad I could provide her with some amusement as I toiled away to learn this strange but lovely language. She was the mother in Blacksburg that I needed.

Perhaps my favorite and longest-standing professor was Dr. Nadine Sinno. She, younger than the rest, was the head of the Arabic Language Department. If there’s a Beiruti version of a Southern firecracker, this lady takes the cake. Her job was to teach us about Arabic lit. (in translation), but what I came away with most from her was the dignity of every human life. She enraptured us with stories of living through the aforementioned war and ME life in general. She was FULL of panache and could easily keep us captivated for hours. I will always brag that she said I had a great Lebanese accent J. We moved from student-teacher to mentee-mentor the day she saw my necklace that had myrrh from Jerusalem hanging from it. We talked about what she believed, coming from a predominantly Muslim family. And let me tell ya, for a girl that came from a culture that oppresses women, she was not going to believe anything or do anything she didn’t want to. I remember the guts she had to return my final paper to me and say, “Habebtee, this material is above your paygrade; I’ve pulled some articles for you to look through to help you rewrite this paper.” Coming from anyone else I might have been offended but Dr. Sinno was different; you knew she had your best interest at heart. I still email with her occasionally and hope for her to write the foreword to a book I write one day.

Then there was Saud. I met Saud because in 2015 I was a creepy, mega-evangelist who approached anybody and everybody in hopes that they would listen to me talk about Jesus. I’m not knocking this approach, heck, I met one of my best friends, Saud through it, just saying it’s not for me. Back to Saud, I first noticed him when he fought with our Egyptian teacher twice in front of a 50 person class. I admired his audacity. He had a different opinion on ME history than she did, coming from Saudi Arabia. One day, nervous, I approached Saud after class and asked if he would like to come to an int’l student dinner that Chi Alpha was putting on that night. “Sure,” he said like a soft breeze. From there we hit it off like Bonnie and Clyde, instead of stealing physical things, we were stealing ancient secrets from both of our languages. He is, to this day, the most poetic person I have ever known: “Anna!! I can’t believe you don’t understand this yet.. the poetry is UNREAL,” he said of a Kazim a-Sahir song. He was one of my biggest advocates in continuing my pursuit of this bear of a language and for that I am eternally grateful. Finally, Saud had to return to Saudi and begin his job at Aramco. We keep in touch when we can. I miss him dearly. Also, we have a half-serious marriage pact that if we’re both not married by 30, we’ll tie the knot lol.

Then, I came home from Tech and was dejected. Studying Arabic alone is VERY hard and mentally taxing, let alone negligent. Then, I met little, Miss Gigi. A native Saudi, I cannot tell her full story here for safety reasons but you can know that her full name was Hagir-Arabic for the Hebrew HAGAR. Hagar has a huge place in my heart as the mother of all Arabs. I mark up her story every time I read it. So when I found out that this was her great name, I wrote a quick three-session bible study on Hagir, Arabs and God. I would love to expand that one day. Gigi became more stable and I see less and less of her but we still keep in touch and she is now engaged! How exciting.

Last, but not least, is Christian. I met him at a birthday party for one of our mutual friends and he almost jumped ten feet back when I told him I know what “wasta” is (under-the-table money and dealings that make traveling in the ME a whole lot easier). He soon became my tutor but, more than that, a friend. I’ve met his whole family and fell in love. It’s like a giant group lesson where I’m the only student gleaning ancient wisdom from these native speakers. When I’m over there there are always tea and cookies. And don’t even get me started on his nephew who might just be the cutest one-year-old IN THE WORLD. And he just got a new baby sister! I am quite, quite thankful for the Agha’s and how they’ve taken me in as their own; you can tell they have a knack for making people feel like they belong.

And now we’re here. I try to study Arabic for four hours a day and have one to two lessons with Christian a week. The work is hard but the payoff of being able to communicate on someone else’s terms is immeasurable. I hope to write a worship album in Arabic one day: lullabies for children. We’ll see how that pans out as I can neither sing nor speak Arabic fluently. A girl can dream. Well, that’s all I have. Find your people and you can do anything. God is love, Rev Run¹.

 1. if you don't understand this reference, don't worry about it lol