The theme of the trip was “Leave Behind Everything You Think You Know”. We decided that Mexico was the best place for each of us to have me be during that time. He would do better with me supporting him from there and I would come back nourished and ready to care for him. 

Now that I think about it, it is a little surprising how easily this decision came. It was full of truth so that neither Tom nor I questioned his spending his first week of cancer treatment with me in another country, without electricity or reliable phone contact. His dad and brother and one of my brothers came to town to drive him and to care for the kids so it was also a sweet chance to have some men do the nurturing. 

My time in Mexico was challenging on so many levels and my consciousness was not near where it is today. It was early March in Minnesota so we had been in several months of dark, colorless days and my senses were heightened with the newness of cancer. Mexico’s foliage and vibrant colors shocked like the first breath and brought me to tears. I was completely unprepared and didn’t know how to respond. No one else was crying or experiencing incredible awe or sudden and dramatic waves of emotion. 

The trip continued in this way. I shared a thatched roof hut with my sister who lives in Los Angeles and whom I rarely see so this too brought with it all kinds of stuff. The wind blew sand through the screen window all night as if we weren’t even there and the massive ocean just feet away crashed and washed and waved like my own self while also leaving me feeling insignificant in its power. 

Something was waking up and I resisted it. 

We had several days of ceremony, each day at a different location, dedicated to an element and a part of a medicine wheel. There would have been a lot of internal movement in that part of the country anyway and there was even more with being in ceremony. 

Resistance was my natural MO, my senses were on overload and I was in a new place called to "wake up" at a time of significant crisis. I did my best to ignore even the loudest of wake up calls.

On one of the last days, before the sun came up, a bird came three times chirping in the most annoying way. Each time I cursed it and wondered why it didn’t bother my sister in the next bed. After the third time, I recognized that I had been hearing a voice say, "get up and watch the sunrise". 

Begrudgingly, I wrapped myself in a blanket and walked to sit on a rock near the water. I looked at the sand, dug my feet in it and waited. I waited and waited, discouraged with the sun not rising. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was making up the message from this annoying bird. 

Finally, after what seemed like an hour and a good fight with frustration, I looked out at the water and just saw water. I looked out farther still. Pretty soon, I looked out far enough to see the horizon and the sun was just waking up. The sky was changing colors and the tip of the sun was peeking. 

Was there ever anything before that promised new life like that sunrise? I don’t think so. But I couldn’t see it where I was looking at first. I had been looking down the whole time. I hadn’t looked at the horizon. 

We just have to look at the horizon! We have to be where we are and look at the horizon! Thank God for that bird’s call. 

It was our last day and I finally got the blessing I didn’t know I came for. It was a blessing that served as a basis for the rest of our journey with cancer. Later that morning, I went to the little phone stand and used my calling card to call home to tell the kids about my morning. I finished sharing this with my young son and he laughed! And then he told me that the same thing happened to Daddy this morning! He said a little bird came in and woke him too. He said it hadn’t done that before and that Daddy thought it was so special that he wanted to tell them about it. He said Daddy told them the bird told him good morning and that it is a new day. The difference was that Tom welcomed the call. It is no accident that somehow we both found our wake ups significant enough to share it with the kids and that this was the day I called home. 

It reminds me that I am not alone; no matter how alone I may make myself be. 

It has served me many times, as much as the lesson to look at the horizon and always being aware of what is just beneath your feet as well.