JOE

     I am more than halfway through my treatments.  It was so much easier this week than last week.   Maybe I am just used to it, who knows.  I made it to yoga this week.  The doctor says the lightheaded feeling I get has nothing to do with the radiation.  He said that maybe I am just nervous.  Could be.  I am nervous.  I am nervous and excited about it being over. The young people doing my treatments are so kind.  I keep doing my silent affirmation.  "Every hand that touches me is a healing hand."  I am however, falling in love with the men that park my car.  I have conversations with Joe alot.  He is from the Philippines.  He has only been in this country for three years.  He is fifty, but looks thirty.  He told me he loves this country, and his wife is a nurse at the Cleveland Clinic.  While he talks, he pays very close attention at the people coming and going.  He runs everywhere.  Yesterday, he ran to help a woman who was on the ground.  She was getting into the passenger side of a car, and got out of her wheelchair and fell.  Joe ran to help as well as others.  They finally got her in.  One man, another valet, talks to me and asks how my treatment went.  When I give him a tiny tip for bringing my car to me, he is so gracious in accepting it.  Like I gave him a fifty.  One man talks about the weather and said yesterday, "I am complaining now, but in January, I will miss this heat."  Cleveland weather.  It's either winter or summer.  Joe told me that he sends money to his grandmother in the Philippines every month.  He said he understands we have healthcare issues in this country and financial issues, but it is so much better here than in his country.  He told me he has four children.  "I told my wife.  I will work any job to support my family."  I see so many patients come and go and I asked Joe about all he sees.  I see some people bald from chemo and some unable to hold their heads up while being wheeled to and from their cars.  I see so much.  I am so lucky that all I am having is a two minute session and I am done.  I'm not throwing up.  I'm not exhausted.  I walk out.  I eat my graham crackers to stay grounded, and I go home.  Easy.  My heart hurts for others.  Whenever Joe talks to me he touches my arm very lightly.  "Every hand that touches me is a healing hand."  That includes the valet.