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Healing Hope on the Day of Remission: A Warrior's Memoir
On the bank of a graceful river, so-called "life,"
In the mist of a quiet, peaceful "night,"
When stars were curiously staring down on Earth, winking bright,
With instantly fading light
I was dreaming of the Angels, Heaven and never-coming-tomorrow in sight
While escorting by a dancing, shining full moon,
The rhythmic melodic breeze was murmuring a love story of a long romantic night
Fearless of ending soon,
By forthcoming morning and noon
It was coming from a far distance to touch tenderly the face of floating river and meadows around me.
Before losing myself completely in romance of life, I did see, suddenly, that soft moving, musical breeze came to a halt!
By the harsh reality of a storm, mounting untimely assault!
The sparkling stars, chasing glorious moon, were hurriedly escaping from the sky.
All happened abruptly in front of my terrified eye
While the last shooting star was hiding in very dark horizon,
The rumbling scream of thunders broke the silence
To remind me that the "romance" was now shackled harshly in prison
Then constellation of stars of "CANCER" appeared on horizon
The weeping sky, hinted me either, sorrow from my fate committing a treason,
Or sobbing by the tearful Angels, in faraway Heaven, was the reason
Horrified by the fear of darkness, and thunders
I looked for safe shelters
Probably in a warm nest under the wing of Angels
To reach the shiny circle of light around "Her,"
I over-stretched my trembling body to reach there
At last, I was there where the "Hope" lives to persist
Where the savagery of my nightmare ceases to exist!
She shook me gently to open my eye
Confused by the dream, after a sigh
I saw the smiling face of my doctor, "a saint with a mission"
Telling me the news that I am in "remission"
For a moment I closed my eyes
I saw "doctor's" hand was painting on the face of sky,
Again with shiny moon and stars
Down on the Earth, gentle flow of rivers passing over their beds with gravelly scars
And breezes over the meadows with a musical sound
Resumed their journey freely toward the Heaven and beyond.
ALI KHOJASTEH, FACP, FRS-MED, is President of Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Care Clinic and Research Institute and a practicing hematologist-medical oncologist in central Missouri, and the former Chairman of the Department of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia, MO.