<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Between Grief and Hope</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><i class="">I don’t know what to do </i>she says….</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Sitting across, her face in the grip of anguish</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">explaining, in English as a second language, </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">that her son, now in the peak of teenage years</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">is once again inhabited by the malevolence of cancer</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><i class="">I don’t know what to do </i>she says…</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">recounting the conversation with the oncologist,</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">after months of treatments…</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">they said he will be given chemo for a while and then </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">It will probably be part of the palliative plan</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class=""><i class="">I didn’t know what that word – palliative - meant </i>she said</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">wiping tears dripping on her cheeks</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">Now in the torturous discomfort of helplessness, she turns within</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">to wrap the arms of her heart around the deepest yearning </p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;" class="">ever felt….to summon…nothing less than…. a miracle</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Isabelle St. Jean</div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 22px;" class=""><br class=""></p></div></div></body></html>