As a group of 38 young women, the Class of 1998 was one of the smallest classes to pass through the halls of Agnes Irwin. We not only knew each other by name, but even the least likely of friends realized some intimate detail about each others’ lives. So when cancer stole one of us away earlier this year, more than a decade after many of us had last seen her, we felt a palpable loss.
On February 5, 2011, at 30 years of age, our dear friend Meghan Murphy left this world.
While at Agnes Irwin, Meghan was a leader, always balancing academics with issues she felt passionately about. She not only sat on the student-faculty committee, she was active in advancing race relations among the study body and was a member of umoja—which in Swahili means unity. She was one of the few students who participated in a committee to recognize gender awareness, and she expressed her deep commitment to public service through her representation on Agnes Irwin’s community service board. She rowed on the crew team, but more importantly, she acted as a positive force between the different personalities in our small class. Her humor brought lightness to our classrooms, and her friendship was important to so many of us. Often inspired by Meghan, we selected her to speak at our graduation in Bryn Mawr. While sitting there together listening to her beautiful speech, it was difficult to discern between tears of laughter and tears of sadness. Her speech struck that perfect chord between nostalgia, anticipation for the future, and a sense of history.
Following her young career at Agnes Irwin, Meghan attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where her commitment to the environmental movement flourished. After graduating from Cornell in 2003, she stayed among the hills, gorges, and the one great, long finger lake that comprises Ithaca, to start a biodiesel company and to become the editor of the book, Biodiesel America, which later became a movie. She volunteered at a local hospice care facility and threw the rest of her energy into working for T. Colin Campbell, the author of The China Project, the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. Like Dr. Campbell, Meghan was a fierce advocate of sustainable living and the vegan diet. She was also a soul-searcher, and from Ithaca, traveled to India to partake in a spiritual retreat. For Meghan, no adventure was too big. No cause she felt passionately about was unworthy of her sacrifice.
When she found out she would have to battle cancer, she tackled it head on, staying positive and seemingly hopeful during her last year with us. Through an online journal, she reconnected with many of us, writing about her struggles, making us laugh, when all we wanted to do was cry. One of the most telling photographs of Meghan posted last year was of her hula hooping on the beach in Florida—where she sought treatment and care—with a grand smile on her face.
As Meghan’s spirit looked around at those of us attending her funeral service, she saw a reflection of herself. Songs sung by her friends filled the halls of the Ithaca church. Each friend and family member who spoke recalled her energy and enthusiasm for life. Collectively, we buried Meghan on top of a large Ithaca hill, in a nature conservancy, far from the sounds of the roads below. The wind whipped snow to our brows and we followed a large draft horse that pulled a sled carrying Meghan’s body, which was wrapped in a biodegradable cloth. She became part of the Earth, as it always was a part of her—to the singing voices of those who loved her.
…Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan, and what did I see
Coming for to carry me home?
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
Dear Meghan, may you rest in peace.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Traveling through Vagus
I almost traveled again today, to somewhere otherworldly, through my vagus nerve. I was reading about how a bump on my leg could be sarcoma, or cancer, and I almost passed out.
The Vagus Nerve. It slows the blood pumping from our hearts. But sometimes mine malfunctions. Hemorrhage, self-destruction, starvation have broken it. Things that I fear, things that disturb me, often attack my vagus nerve, and break it. My mind assists with the havoc. It produces images that just don’t want to leave—the protruding ribs of a sick child, the arm of a heroine user, me on a surgeon’s table having cancerous cells scraped away. At those times, the blood moves rapidly from my heart, and I churn out all my defenses: liters of water, raising my feet horizontally, hanging my head between my knees, pretty thoughts. But before long, my feet start to tingle, my body shivers, my armpits sweat. The room sits under a heavenly light. And I fall from reality. I enter another world, where time, as we know it, ceases to exist. The seconds or minutes spent by those around me scrambling to wake me up, to raise me back into consciousness are, to me, days, months, sometimes years. While there, I’ve been under a horse’s hooves, I’ve had children dancing around me, I’ve been lying in a field of grass watching the sun set. I see people I haven’t seen in years. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to a coma, or death.
I’ve landed on carpets, bathroom floors, sidewalks, and stair wells. One time my head only slumped back while I remained seated in my chair. I’ve acquired large bumps on the back of my head, rug burn on my face, bruises on my knees, depending on how I fall. I’ve woken up with a smile on my face, crying, and in a hospital bed, always feeling as if my whole life has been drained from me. One time, when my vagus nerve was at its worst, I had a seizure.
My dysfunctional vagus nerve destroys my chance of ever entering medicine, being an injecting drug user, or maybe giving birth; for the better or for the worse.
I once thought the nerve would eventually become more insensitive, beating away slowly, lackadaisically, mechanically functioning as it should. As I grew older, I thought I would better be able to cope with the world’s demons, to better hide my fears, by inconspicuously remaining vertical despite a racing mind. But I’m fairly certain, at this point, that this condition is inherent; that the vagus nerve will continue to plague me. And as I age, I am almost certain that my vagus nerve will constantly remind me it’s there, not to be forgotten. Like most people, my health will worsen as my hair turns gray, which will require more trips to the doctor, more bad diagnoses, more surgeries, more blood work, more of the unpretty.
My mind, my affinity for all things of misery doesn’t help. I work in public health, a world of statistics about death and disease. I watch films about mothers giving birth and dying in a pool of blood because they couldn’t get to a hospital, infants whose diarrhea is so watery and persistent that it shrivels them up, eventually sucking the life right from them. I stood in a room and stared at a dead, gray, stillborn fetus. I write sad stories in an effort to produce a visceral reaction among my readers. I try to dissociate. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s not. If I’m doing my job well, it’s not.
So, occasionally the world will just be too much for my vagus nerve, and it will call it quits for seconds, or minutes. And maybe that is how I will be able to survive, by checking out for a while, traveling to somewhere more beautiful, when things become too ugly. Maybe, in reality, the vagus nerve is saving my life.
The Vagus Nerve. It slows the blood pumping from our hearts. But sometimes mine malfunctions. Hemorrhage, self-destruction, starvation have broken it. Things that I fear, things that disturb me, often attack my vagus nerve, and break it. My mind assists with the havoc. It produces images that just don’t want to leave—the protruding ribs of a sick child, the arm of a heroine user, me on a surgeon’s table having cancerous cells scraped away. At those times, the blood moves rapidly from my heart, and I churn out all my defenses: liters of water, raising my feet horizontally, hanging my head between my knees, pretty thoughts. But before long, my feet start to tingle, my body shivers, my armpits sweat. The room sits under a heavenly light. And I fall from reality. I enter another world, where time, as we know it, ceases to exist. The seconds or minutes spent by those around me scrambling to wake me up, to raise me back into consciousness are, to me, days, months, sometimes years. While there, I’ve been under a horse’s hooves, I’ve had children dancing around me, I’ve been lying in a field of grass watching the sun set. I see people I haven’t seen in years. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to a coma, or death.
I’ve landed on carpets, bathroom floors, sidewalks, and stair wells. One time my head only slumped back while I remained seated in my chair. I’ve acquired large bumps on the back of my head, rug burn on my face, bruises on my knees, depending on how I fall. I’ve woken up with a smile on my face, crying, and in a hospital bed, always feeling as if my whole life has been drained from me. One time, when my vagus nerve was at its worst, I had a seizure.
My dysfunctional vagus nerve destroys my chance of ever entering medicine, being an injecting drug user, or maybe giving birth; for the better or for the worse.
I once thought the nerve would eventually become more insensitive, beating away slowly, lackadaisically, mechanically functioning as it should. As I grew older, I thought I would better be able to cope with the world’s demons, to better hide my fears, by inconspicuously remaining vertical despite a racing mind. But I’m fairly certain, at this point, that this condition is inherent; that the vagus nerve will continue to plague me. And as I age, I am almost certain that my vagus nerve will constantly remind me it’s there, not to be forgotten. Like most people, my health will worsen as my hair turns gray, which will require more trips to the doctor, more bad diagnoses, more surgeries, more blood work, more of the unpretty.
My mind, my affinity for all things of misery doesn’t help. I work in public health, a world of statistics about death and disease. I watch films about mothers giving birth and dying in a pool of blood because they couldn’t get to a hospital, infants whose diarrhea is so watery and persistent that it shrivels them up, eventually sucking the life right from them. I stood in a room and stared at a dead, gray, stillborn fetus. I write sad stories in an effort to produce a visceral reaction among my readers. I try to dissociate. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s not. If I’m doing my job well, it’s not.
So, occasionally the world will just be too much for my vagus nerve, and it will call it quits for seconds, or minutes. And maybe that is how I will be able to survive, by checking out for a while, traveling to somewhere more beautiful, when things become too ugly. Maybe, in reality, the vagus nerve is saving my life.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
A New Sort of Wanderlust
I am not in wanderlust right now, at least not in the true sense of the word. I am not writing to the sound of Yemen’s call to prayer, from the Nigerien desert, or from Bali’s silent shores. I am sitting in my house, sipping wine, listening to Rachael Yamagata – but I feel so very far away.
It’s been a strange 24 hours. Yesterday, an old friend of mine passed away. At age 30, a cancer expanded and manifested, until it took her lungs, her heart, and her life. Meghan died only a day prior to the anniversary of my grandfather’s death – February 5 – such a strange day it will be always.
I can still hear her voice. She wasn’t my best friend. She wasn’t my sister. I hadn’t seen her in years, but she stayed with me. I remember listening to her give the closing speech at our high school graduation, with tears in my eyes. Because that is how Meghan rolled. She could make a sour soul laugh. She could reach inside us all with her smile. She could move us, but subliminally. I admired her. She lived organically. She lived to save the planet, but she couldn’t save herself.
She taught me things — about her lessons on dying. She stayed positive as she lost pound after pound, healthy cell after healthy cell. She kept making me laugh, when all I wanted to do was cry. She swung herself around, hula hooping on the beach. She walked in the sand. She tried hard to stay with the living. She got jealous of her friends with silver hair. Oh, if only she could age and grow old with her loved ones. She tricked us all, in her ascent to heaven. I thought she would always be among us — the living. She said that dying made her feel younger. She was smaller, more dependent, less herself as a woman. Her life froze and went in reverse. She couldn’t shift it the other way, although she tried her hardest.
And through it all, she wrote and shared her life with those around her. The online narrative that encapsulated her last months on Earth made me feel so very close to her. So, when I got the news that I wouldn’t be hearing from her anymore, I felt deeply saddened. I felt cheated.
Through all of this, I’ve never been a great believer in heaven. But today, things changed. My mind kept traveling there, to somewhere otherworldly. And a deep sense of calm prevailed. Meghan’s spirit was so big that it has to be somewhere. Life wouldn’t make sense if she ceased to exist. So, yes, Meghan is out there, up there, around there, here, everywhere. There just can’t possibly be any other way. Meghan has been stirring in my mind, teaching me things all day long. I thought of her as I rode my horse, and I felt more at peace, more positive than I ever had atop the horse before. Thank you, Meghan. Because me and that horse, we are here, and well, and we have what seems like all the time in the world. I only wish Meghan had the same.
While she is traveling around out there, getting acclimated to her new surroundings, I am traveling too. And with this, I am changing the meaning of this blog – to not just be about travel around this globe, but the traveling we do every day. Although it was a story of the most tragic sort, I traveled to Meghan, with Meghan. I heard Meghan through her writings, and I felt close to her because of her will and spirit to keep us with her. I hope I can keep you with me.
Meghan, as so many others have said, we'll miss hearing from you, may you travel in peace.
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