Last Sunday as the anointing in the church grew stronger, the pastor of my church declared, “ I perceive a shift in the atmosphere, I want everybody to make a shift. Move, do something, say something to somebody.” I was prompted, I believe, by the Holy Spirit, to get up and move from the last row in the pew to the front row. I usually sit in the back row with my pillows to avoid distracting others. Good thing I made the shift, because that brought me to the attention of the Bishop, my pastor.
As I stood close to the altar ( in a sweatshirt and bedroom slippers), he started speaking prophetically over me. It was when he said, “You will wear pretty things again, “ that I began to cry. I was touched that the Bishop remembers that I was dressed up in my African regalia when I spoke at the church during the Black History month two years ago. For now, making it to church in clean clothes and sitting through 3 hours of the church service, is an accomplishment for me. We have a church banquet coming up soon and everybody is planning on looking good. One woman said her daughter instagrammed pics of her practicing walking on high heel shoes. I won’t even dare to wear high heel shoes now.
A few Sundays ago the pastor said in his sermon that African-Americans continue to dress up good for church today because during the slave era, Sunday was the only day their ancestors could dress up, so they made the best of it.
Pushing my quest to look good again I took some of my pictures to my oncologist’s clinic three days ago. While waiting to see the doctor a family came in with a wedding album and was showing them to staff when I cut in with: “ May I look also.? Are you Nigerians? ” I was wearing my brace and not looking at all like somebody you want to pay too much attention to, but being the nosy journalist that I am, that did not stop me from intruding into their “ show and tell” session.
I had been wondering whether or not to go ahead and show my pics to the friendly clinic staff before the photo blitz by the Nigerian family. After their blitz, I concluded this is the day the Lord hath made for showing off pictures of people in Nigerian regalia. When I got into a room to see my oncologist, Doctor S, I held out a picture of me in Nigerian attire and said: Yesterday, I started to cry when I felt my rib cage sag further. I ate well and exercised regularly and this is how I used to look. I want you to do all you can to restore me back to this.
He was surprised that that was me in the photograph. Now, I’m almost stooped over, I use a cane (my friend, Hettie, who recently visited me from London, reminded me that it is called “walking stick” —- in Nigeria and the U.K).
Doctor S said he would refer me to specialists when I am ready. He knows I don’t really want any more invasive procedures. I just wish I could go to the Gerson Holistic Institute in Hawaii (808-933-4400) where a church friend, Nowlin, went to, and was healed of three different kinds of cancers. The sunshine and beaches in Hawaii would also do me a lot of good. It warms my heart when my native Hawaiian friend says, “Come home.” Being a daughter of the land, I feel she is extending to me the blessings of her ancestral land.
Mama Ess, a Nigerian woman from my church, told me twice over the phone that I looked good Sunday (when the Bishop was praying over me). Really? I called my half-aunty who lives in Dallas, Texas, to enquire about how she is doing in the face of the Ebola threat in her city. She said she lives about 25 minutes away from America’s Ebola ground zero. She then said she saw me in a dream and described how I looked. I told her that my pastor had just been praying that I be able to wear pretty things.
Some days when I feel overwhelmed by my health and financial woes I think I am facing the biggest challenge in the world. A few good questions diminish the self-pity: Which would you rather have, Ebola or cancer? Would you like to live in an ISIS- controlled territory? What about those kidnapped and sold into slavery?
There is so much I want to sound off on, but it is a struggle to sit up and read and write like I used to. Now that I am confronted with my own mortality, I feel I have to make the best use of whatever time I have left and sound off passionately on all the issues I care about.
Publish and be damned — before you die. That sounds like a good motto.