She Can't Read Cursive

Goshen College is a small, Mennonite, Liberal Arts College located in Northern Indiana.  I ended up there after a last minute change.  I had planned to attend community college on a full scholarship and study courtroom stenography.  It was around March of my senior year that I suddenly switched gears and decided I'd rather go away to college so I could have what I thought to be a 'real' college experience. They didn't offer stenography of course, but I figured I'd find something else of career interest once I got there.   My older brother was already attending Goshen so it was the one school I was familiar with and I figured they would accept me late in the game.   However, one of the graduation requirements at Goshen is a Study Service Term (SST).  Most students opt to fulfill this by doing a semester abroad. This quite frankly terrified me and kept me from pursing a Goshen College education in the first place.   Since my language of ...

I can’t stand to see someone cry. Partly because I always end up crying myself and partly because I don’t want to be ‘dragged down’; to take on that grief and sorrow.  It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realized that’s what we call empathy. The act of feeling what someone is feeling.  Doesn't seem like we talked much about empathy back in the day.  But today it feels more prominent.  Maybe it's because we are exposed so much more to the perils of others. I guess it doesn't really matter. What matters really is that we NEED a degree of empathy. It guides our morals and values and it’s empathy that helps us with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have done to you.  I see an intuitive reflexologist, Terri, quarterly. She is essential to my wellness team. She said I was an empath. When I looked up the definition it said, “(chiefly in science fiction) a person with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another ...

In just a few weeks I will 'celebrate' being three years out from chemo.  I had about a 4 week break before starting radiation.  Radiation for cancer treatment is daily. I would drive to the center every weekday first thing in the morning for six weeks. I remember one morning having to pull over in a neighborhood because I thought I was going to wretch. I don’t know what came over me, but I got out of the car and ran over to a tree, but nothing happened. I climbed back into the car and drove on to the Radiation Center.  Since it doesn’t take long to become a ‘regular’, I would just walk in and greet everyone and head back to the changing room to undress and put on a hospital gown. I’d then greet the techs in the radiation room and try to hop onto the table gracefully. I usually never succeeded in the graceful part of it. The first thing they do before you even begin radiation is do a mapping appointment. This is where they get all the coordinates necessary to ...