She walked into her bedroom
closet, flicked on the switch, scaring the darkness away and looked at her
clothes. Her abayas (long gowns) were hanging at the end, followed by
traditional Pakistani dresses and then pants and shirts. Maybe she could take
one of her shalwar qameez (pants and shirt) for show and tell.
She believed in being true to
herself, so when she’d come to Canada twelve years ago, she had decided not to
change her cultural dress just to get a job, and it was a good decision because
the public school board readily hired her. Her clothes represented her, but not
anymore. Maybe she should give them away in charity so someone else could
benefit from them after her death.
She raised her gaze towards the
top shelf, where religious books were lined up that had changed her life. They
couldn’t change her life anymore or lengthen it so maybe she should donate
these books to the library, too. She jerked her head as if trying to get the
thoughts of death out of it, turned off the light leaving her personal
belongings in the dark and walked slowly to her study room, putting her hand on
the wall for support. The fatigue from the chemotherapy sessions was still
hindering her normal activities.
The assignment for the
writing therapy class was to find an object that represented her and to write
about it. Maybe one of her professional books would work, so she looked at her
bookshelf, tilted her head to read the titles on the sides. The more she read
the titles, the angrier she got. What use were all these books and her
education or her teaching skills when she couldn’t use them anymore?
She sat on
her knees to see the picture books collection in the bottom shelf. She pulled
out her favourite book Ruler of the Courtyard by Rukhsana Khan but shoved it
back, knowing that she might not have another chance to read this book to
children.
She struggled to her feet and
turned towards the closet, opened it and looked at her junk collection that she
wanted to use in her Montessori classroom. What good was all this material now
that she had to quit her work and didn’t know if she would ever go back to it?
She
clenched her teeth and took deep breaths so she could stop herself from crying,
and instead turned all those emotions into anger. This writing assignment
wasn’t healing her, it was causing her more pain to go through her belongings
probably for the last time. Maybe she should just not go to class this week.
Maybe the chemotherapy was enough to heal her disease.
She shook her head again, determined
not to give up so fast; if she had gotten a job wearing the shalwar qameez then
she could surely find an object to share with her class. She pulled out a metal
box labelled miscellaneous to see if any trinket would be worth relating to.
There
in between knick knacks was a sand timer that had come with a word building
game years ago. She pulled out the timer, placed it on her desk and stared at
the yellow sand flowing from the upper bulb to the lower one. As the upper bulb
was getting empty, she felt anxious about the passage of time, her life. She
had been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and the results of further tests would
decide whether she should undergo treatment or just go for palliative care.
The timer represented her
life, except that she didn’t know how much time she had to live. She picked up
the timer and curled her fingers over the upper part of the tube so that she couldn’t
see how much sand was left.
As her mind was racing, so were her hands as she
taped a white strip of paper around the timer and then turned it over, hiding
the upper bulb with the paper and started looking at the sand trickling down.
A
smile spread over her face. She had found something to share with her
cancer-mates and talk about.
She opened her laptop but
before she could start typing she saw a news alert on her homepage. A twenty-five-year-old
woman was hit by a car and died at the spot in Mississauga. The thought of
death came to her again as she leaned back in her chair and looked at the
timer. Did the woman know she would die in a car accident? How was her life different
from that woman’s except that she was forty-one and she was still alive.
Somehow her positive thinking
bulb went on as she sat up straight, took a deep breath and started typing for
her show and tell:
My life is like everybody
else’s. No one knows how much time they have. I have decided not to worry about
how much time is left, and instead focus on doing what pleases God and what
benefits others. If I am destined to die of cancer, I can do nothing about it.
The only thing I can control is how I spent my life. I choose to live happily
and help others in any way I can.
The clicking of the keyboard
kept going on and so did the healing.
* * *
Shazia Afzal is an elementary and Montessori teacher and a cancer survivor. After
attending a workshop with Brian Henry on writing memoirs, she joined the
creative writing class. She wishes to write picture books for children and a
memoir of her cancer journey. She lives in Mississauga with her husband and two
children.
See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Alton, Barrie, Bracebridge, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, St. John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Halton, Ingersoll, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.
