Dear Reader:

This was the first photo to enter the chapel of hope stories blog. Little did I know that hot day in August of 2010….that the rocking chair Honey gave me at the baby shower for Mandy would come in very handy….three more little spirits were just waiting on their arrival date.

It is now August 8…and the second blog is about to be published. I simply called it: My Story. (August 8, 2010)

Every journey needs a starting point and every journey has a story. This is mine. Two years ago, three weeks after my daughter Mandy’s wedding, I was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Since then life has been a roller coaster ride, both emotionally and physically…but here I am entering my story on a “blog” that I didn’t even know existed two years ago. So life is good-you never know what is just around the turn in the road! I can honestly say that I have had more “wondrous” moments in the last two years than all the years leading up to it. Life is funny that way. I think the difference is my ability to recognize these moments now.

My unexpected visit to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, NC is one of those wondrous moments. (Upon reflection, these miraculous undertakings have all stemmed from friends and family’s magnanimity towards me in the form of time and adventure.) In fact, I have thought that if I ever write a book about my travail through this unknown frontier called Cancer, it should be titled: The Escapades of a One-Breasted Bandit.The title is pretty self-explanatory except perhaps for the “bandit’ part. You see, I realize everyday when I wake up, I have “stolen” time once again.

* Update: Today  the title would have to be changed from “one” to “none” breasted bandit and I was still capitalizing Cancer during that blog…I was just a few days away from my meeting with the young girl who told me her grandmother’s story about never capitalizing cancer because it didn’t deserve any respect…it should always just be known as “little c.” And it still is today.

On July 26, 2010, almost two weeks ago (from this second blog) I found myself rounding a new turn in the road with my good friend, Honey Burrell. She had met me earlier in the day in Saluda, NC where I followed her to her mountain home-only to be told that we were immediately leaving again so don’t unpack…we were heading towards St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope. The skies looked threatening but Honey was determined that this rendezvous was pre-destined. (Hard to shake that Presbyterian upbringing lingo or as one pastor called us, “The Frozen Chosen” See, we do have a sense of humor.)

A little over two hours later, as the sun broke through the clouds, we arrived. Along the way, Honey shared with me a brief overview of how the chapel came to be. It was built by a cancer patient who had been diagnosed in 1981 with cancer and told that there was no hope for a cure and given a terminal prognosis.

So she (Beverly Barutio) decided that this was not the way to go out…she took herself off chemo, prayed hard, and decided to enjoy what life she had left fully. She should have been the pin-up girl for the movie: Eat, Pray, Love. In a prayer to God, following her decision to stop treatments, she promised if given time, she would repay His generosity by leaving something behind in His name for other people in need. In 1998 the chapel was completed. This remarkable woman died in 2002- 23 years after her terminal prognosis. 

When you arrive at this little chapel, it looks like a slightly enlarged doll house. It is built beside a beautiful little stream that surround the entire area. If a brook can “babble”  then this one does…slow, soothing, and melodious. Wild flowers and butterflies are all in abundance. The butterflies seem to be dancing for the sheer joy of simply being alive. The fresh smell of cut green grass after a rain envelopes your senses. Is there a better smell in the world? Perhaps someone should make a perfume of it.

Opposite the chapel lies a rugged wooden cross upon a large stone. A plaque reads: Fear Not Tomorrow-Jesus is already there. (I found/find this inscription comforting.)

Outside the chapel is a welcome sign. There is scripture and words Stop, Rest, Reflect…and that is exactly what we did. There are only four (love-seat size) wooden benches inside with a cross engraved on each one. So basically the chapel holds eight people. Mike, Honey’s husband, jokingly, said that he wanted his funeral service performed there…he could fill up the church!

Beautiful stained-glass designs reflect the afternoon’s sun. There is a place to sign in and one sees several news articles about the chapel and its builder. There is a place to pray, an open Bible, and an alter filled with paraphernalia. It was that altar that consumed my thoughts and imagination as I listened to Honey reading some of the articles off the walls.

Visitors had left trinkets behind…as a gift to the chapel and its creator. But why? Honey’s voice became a distant drone that sounded far away as my imagination started soaring. A baseball…why a baseball? Immediately an idea came to me “Build it and they will come“- was that the owner’s intention…was he/she a fan of the movie Field of Dreams?  An empty pack of cigarettes? Perhaps  the owner was fighting lung cancer or simply knew he/she needed to give up smoking to live a life more fully?

Toys, cards, pictures, flowers, jewelry…the objects on the altar seemed to multiply as I began counting them. I suddenly became consumed with the knowledge that I would walk away from here and never know the stories behind the ornaments. There was a sign-in-book but I realized as I glanced back through it-no stories or comments were mentioned about the left articles. A sense of sadness fell over me. 

I only had my pocketbook with me so what could I leave behind to explain what this experience had meant to me? What was a gift that I could leave…what was something very precious to me? My eyes fell upon a pacifier that someone had left on the altar and then I knew. 

I opened my pocket book and took out a recent photograph of myself, my daughter Mandy, and my most cherished gift of all…my new granddaughter Eva Cate.

It is Eva Cate who has given me so much joy that I fight to see and spend another day with that beautiful gift of life. On the back of the photo I wrote: “Love is the child who shares our breath; Love is the child who scatters death.” – William Blake

It was my daughter Mandy who, upon hearing of this inspiring  adventure, suggested the idea of using a blog to search for the owners of the trinkets. Immediately I knew that this was the project that I had been searching for since my diagnosis…a way to connect with other “journeymen” (and women) whose paths have crossed at this little chapel of hope. 

So, I conclude, dear readers, with a request for you to share your story if you have been to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope or if you decide to do so in the future. A Gullah expressions says: “When a person dies, a story goes up in flames.” Let us pray that this doesn’t happen before the stories are told.

Remember…” Good beginnings make for good endings”….and I am all about good endings!

……………………….

 So until tomorrow….the memories continue and the dots are connected. 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

More additions to the garden: Susan’s rose bush and hangers for my gerber daisies starting to reappear and bloom.