Stories that heal from ‘Kitchen Table Wisdom’

There are three scars on my body: an eight-inch mark across my right chest where my breast used to be, a hairline incision on my lower abdomen, and the most recent, a jagged curve downward from my navel through which a tumor the size of a huge muffin was removed.

I used to spend each waking moment surveying these marks, deeply aware of my loss and imperfection. The wounds go well beyond the physical, festering the core of my being, demanding closure. Waiting to be healed.

With dreams now obscured by dreary prospects of end-stage suffering and a shortened life span, I frantically re-examined the constructs upon which I’ve defined my life so far. I was on the verge of a rudderless existence.

Well-meaning friends who lent me so-called inspirational and empowering books supported my attempts at self-transformation. For months, they lay untouched by my night-light. I detested such books, not wanting to be pathetic or prosaic in my quest for transcendence.

At a bookstore, I chanced upon Rachel Remen’s Kitchen Table Wisdom, an inspirational book that journals her life experiences as a healer and survivor, and those of children and grownups who struggle with the complexities of living with life-threatening and terminal illnesses like cancer. I first doubted its value in unraveling the timeless truths that clarify one’s becoming and help one understand how human suffering can sanctify life. What drew me to Rachel’s book, though, was her reputation as a medical reformer who abandoned the Cartesian orientation of western science and rediscovered an encompassing and compassionate healing, the kind that recognizes the role of the spirit in one’s recovery from illness.

I once wholly relied on medical science and its purveyors, competent and circumspect experts with quick-fox antidotes to my pain, but distant from my fears and sadness and suffering. I’m no stranger to the self-imposed isolation of the sick and dying and the chilling remoteness of most doctors and nurses. I knew, quite instinctively, that there was a more compassionate and fundamental human way of caring for the wounded.

I found common ground with the woman who smiled on the back cover, her handsome face belying years of immense suffering as a long-term survivor of Crohn’s disease, a life-threatening and progressive intestinal disorder she has had since childhood.

Rachel’s book reeled me at the fringes of a newfound paradigm that enhanced my reverence for life. It was integral to my transformational journey. In the hidden bowels of my being, I discovered an unbreakable human spirit and a will to embrace life and accept death as an inseparable reality.

The stories of triumph and failure, of redemption, and of lives coming full circle in spite of living at end stage were essential in processing the self-imposed alienation, the inmost conflicts and uncertainties, the whirlwind emotions, the defiance and countless surrenderings, and the rage that made up my unique illness experience.

I was deeply moved by the story of a five-year-old boy, who at the end stage of leukemia, said he was going home. The hospital staff, unprepared by the child’s profound intimation of death, was horrified. Who could have promised this boy that he was going home? Each blamed the other for telling him so. Rachel describes her experience with this dying child as a time for healing, both ways. It seemed to me, though, that she had gotten more from that experience.

I’ve witnessed the passing away of most of the children I regularly visit in the cancer ward of a nearby hospital. Arn now comes to mind. When he was much healthier, I promised I’d get him a pet turtle. For some reason, I relentlessly put off going to the pet shop to buy him one. The morning he died, I was preoccupied shopping for the little green creature. Strange, but there weren’t any turtles for sale that day. I realize now that I wanted to get away from the dying boy to shield myself from the hurt and helplessness of having to watch him go. I should have stayed close and done even a simple human thing, like hold his hand. I should have stayed close and experienced his wholeness. Many times, I missed out on the lesson death teaches.

Death validates and demystifies life. Our lives, writes Rachel, are ultimately sustained and enriched by things immeasurable and impervious to science. These are among the precious slivers of wisdom Rachel shares in her book. She taught me what my doctors couldn’t.

She taught me that to grieve is to heal; it is an "act of self-care." She reminded me that we each have our beginnings and endings and stories to tell. And that listening to each other’s stories and forging meaningful connections are healing. We are, indeed, inextricably bonded to each other. We are each other’s keepers, bearers of each one’s pain and suffering.

Kitchen Table Wisdom is a groundswell for those in the practice of medicine who feel inadequate and burnt-out, thinking that when all treatments fail, there is nothing more to give, no more healing to be done. As I read each story, I realized that within us all lies an immense but untapped potential for compassion, a wondrous gift of healing. It was with an aching sadness I realized that most of us don’t know this yet.

Shortly after reading Rachel’s book, I wrote to thank her for inspiring me to live in the way I now do. I was delighted when she sent me her two audio books entitled Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather‘s Blessings, along with a note wishing me well. Two kindred souls from the opposite corners of the world finally gathered at the universal kitchen table, each present for the other, each bearing a gesture of humanity, a healing so powerful in its simplicity.

I still spend each waking moment surveying my scars, but with a sureness that my length of days brims with an inner calmness in the midst of loss and mutilation. I wake up each day to tell my story, with a quickening of the spirit.