Jury Duty and Disabled Parking Placards

Some perks don't feel like perks

People often tell cancer patients or others with serious or chronic illness to “stay positive.” I can’t express how annoying I find this.

Last summer, Gary told me that in the midst of the mail I was letting pile up was a summons for jury duty.

“Really? I missed that,” I said. I found the summons and filled out the form, which asked questions such as “can you be seated for hours at a time.” I responded, “yes but I may have to dash out from time to time to rush to the bathroom.” I answered all the questions honestly and let them know about my “late-stage recurrent cancer.” I received a letter back days later excusing me from jury duty. I’d never had a response from the county so quickly.

“I can’t believe they think I’m that sick,” I said to Gary indignantly. We both burst out laughing. Dark humor is definitely more important to me in the midst of all this than cliches about “staying positive.”

“You didn’t want to do it,” he said after we stopped laughing.  He was right: I didn’t have a burning desire to serve on a jury. At the same time, I didn’t want to shirk civic responsibility and I couldn’t believe how easy it was for a truly sick person to get out of it.

Similarly, when my sister Wendy was recently visiting, she went with me to an oncology appointment and asked the oncologist about writing a prescription for a disabled parking placard for my car. The oncologist immediately agreed and filled out a form for us to take to the DMV, somewhat to my dismay, since just a month before I’d been walking one and a half miles a day. When Gary took the form into the DMV while I waited in the car he came back out in minutes with the placard. The reality of needing closer parking upsets me, but that’s my reality.

After my last newsletter went out to you all, I had an appointment with the oncologist during which I learned that the cancer had metastasized, so that I am now officially stage 4 (there was some disagreement among my various doctors about staging before, which is why I used the term late-stage recurrent, which they all agreed was accurate). I am having to step down as rector of St. David’s, which grieves me more than I can possibly express. I am going to try working Sundays-only until mid-May, using up paid leave and trying to create a positive ending to one of the best chapters of my life, and hope that nothing will mess that up. But I am, as mentioned in an email last year, “living life in pencil.” I already missed my last Easter with the congregation due to another hospitalization, as well as my last vestry meeting due to difficulty breathing. Today is my second day-long infusion with a new targeted therapy drug. I also had two chemotherapy drugs yesterday, which also took all day. These should be my only back-to-back infusions.

I’m trying to be positive, and to find God in all this. What’s bringing me joy right now is the lead-up to the book launch for IRREVERENT PRAYERS: ON TALKING TO GOD WHEN YOU’RE SERIOUSLY SICK. Eerdmans has created some lovely designs for us, with ten different blurbs and a poster and bookmarks. I’ve arranged a launch at my favorite local bookstore again, The Little Bookshop. Samantha Vincent-Alexander plans to hold something simultaneously in Philadelphia. I’d love to see you at the Little Bookshop! You can preorder through them (you’ll need to call) and pick your book up at the signing.

I’m so grateful to St. David’s for supporting my unconventional brief-residency sabbatical from 2016-2020 so I could earn my MFA and prioritize my writing. I loved my years of being bivocational and am grateful that, as I move away from parish ministry, continuing to write books will help ease the transition.

Are you experiencing any transitions or illnesses in your life? I’d love to hear about it. Drop a comment!

Blessings,

Elizabeth

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What I’m Writing:

Easter Sunday (read by my dear friend Andie, who learned at 8:15 AM that I was in the hospital and made it to St. David’s in time to read my sermon and preside over our 10 AM service)

Maundy Thursday

Palm Sunday

Lent 4

I did preach Easter 2 but it has not posted to the church website yet.

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What I’m Reading:

I’m embarrassed to realized that I haven’t completed a book since my last letter—well, except an unpublished one by my dear friend Shea Tuttle, her first novel (she has published four other nonfiction books, one as author, one as co-author, and two others as editor). We exchanged drafts of our books on April 2nd and I LOVE hers and have made a few lines edits along with pages of developmental musings.

Other books I’m reading but have not yet finished include Restorative Hope: Creating Pathways of Connection in Women’s Prisons by Sarah Farmer from Eerdmans. I get excited seeing the amazing titles coming out from my publisher. I’m deeply proud to be an Eerdmans author.

I also started Lyz Lenz’s latest, This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life. I enjoy Lenz’s writing, but her marriage experience is so different than mine in a healthy marriage that I’m having trouble relating, and sometimes it feels like she is universalizing her own experience. So I have not finished it.