On April 7 the Gregorian Singers sang a Tenebrae service or what If call the hour and a half one-note-Samba worship service. It was what I needed. I was empty of the basic truths. Truths like we are paving the road for Christ with our palms.

This was Lent. It was not an uplifting, prosperous, celebratory season. But that is part of the experience. Will my body’s imperfections that chose this moment in time to reveal themselves keep Doug out of the foreign service? I don’t know.

WARNING – Medical information skip the following two paragraphs if you want. This information is not as much about me as women in general. It does give parents a good springboard into discussing sex with their daughters.

I went to the Mayo clinic and got a cervical biopsy. No fun but he did use a camera and I got to watch the whole thing on a monitor which was very interesting. I learned something I never knew from the gynecologist who did the biopsy on me. I have since shared it with some of my piano students (with mom’s permission) and with the girls in my Sunday school class. I hope I relate this accurately. One of the reasons young girls are told to wait to have sex is that their cervix is not mature. When a girl is sexually active too early, it can break down the walls of or around the cervix and leave it more open and susceptible to disease. If you ever need a doctor and live near enough to a Mayo clinic go there. They are respectful, thorough, and knowledgeable and they share that with their patients. And they’re expensive. Brace yourself. The biopsy came back negative and a few months later I had a normal pap. Thank God.

As to the lumps in my breasts, I opted for a surgical biopsy. I didn’t want to be in Kazakhstan and wonder if those lumps were bigger or in Rwanda and need surgery or chemotherapy. I was trying to live in the moment and not be too distracted by future possibilities to live my best life in the here and now. I still have not figured out how to live in the moment while not thinking about impending realities like surgery. As time passed, I wasn’t too nervous about the surgery. I scheduled it for a Friday so I would miss fewer students. I fasted from Thursday night eight p.m. for what turned out to be 1 or 2 p.m. surgery on Friday. I laid around the hospital with black exes drawn on my breasts and an i.v. inserted for about four hours. I came out of the anesthesia easily and was wheeled back to the room where Doug was waiting. I was not allowed to leave the hospital until I had urinated and eaten something. The attending nurse asked me what my level of pain was on a scale of one to five. I called it three though I hate all pain and wanted to say four and a half. The Vicodin worked well and I came through addiction free. In fact, I only took one full dose and still have pills left over. I did what I had to do to leave and we drove home. When I got home, I stepped on the scale thinking that not only had I fasted but I had two lumps removed-maybe I’m down a pound! (I’m such a woman.) I had gained five pounds. I shrieked. How can I fast, have something removed from my body and gain five pounds in one day? My more medical, scientific, biology-minded friends informed me that the i.v. pumped me full of fluids. Okay.

All this played out inside of me in chunks of anger; anger at fate (which has become very real to me in the past few years) anger at my young self for any foolish behavior or diet that could have led to this and anger at myself now for acting so deserving of ease in life. I stopped myself short of being angry with God although I always wonder where fate steps out and God steps in and vice-versa. Am I really angry at God but just too scared or timid or well-raised to admit it? At its worst, I rationalized that if Doug couldn’t go into the Foreign Service because of my health I could still try to have that baby. Oh, brother. Oh, I almost forgot. I was angry at the government too. I always am. I figured that if they’d disqualify me on medical reasons such as these I was dealing with that they were being sexist since they’d never disqualify a man for any common male ailments like . . . oh, yeah-there are none.

This, dear reader, is a mere sampling of the unruly nonsense that was occupying my mind as I tried to focus on being a piano teacher. Later, after we knew we were going to D.C. and the world beyond, I came too close to just offering everyone free lessons until we moved I - felt so scattered. I guess that would have been my self imposed penance for acting so above all these common woes.