My grandmother is ready for her fourth chemotherapy treatment. She laughs with the nurse. She has brought her lemon cookies. She knows sweet is the way to nurse-hearts. My grandfather slides into the padded chair adjacent to the bed. He opens his World War II novel, buries his nose in its pages. My grandmother tells the nurse that this is her only grandchild. She is also a nurse, a registered nurse and she is getting her masters in medical anthropology. Her words enunciate proudly; I smile. I am the one. The only one.

And this is my first time to see the doctor with her, to see the anti-cancer invade her bloodstream and destroy the rogue cells. We had sat for a bit in the waiting area of the Schumpert Cancer Treatment Center. I had tired of wig catalogues and looked to my right to see a couple sitting close. Her leg was jittery, restless. He had out his blackberry in one hand while the other was interlaced in hers. I have learned to look for wigs from the catalogues and I could not tell if she was wearing one. Is she restless cancer patient or is she restless wife? I wonder about all the pairings where it isn't obvious.

We meet the oncologist, the hugging one my grandmother loves. The fluid is diminishing, he says. Surgery soon. The labwork--well, the bloodwork doesn't even look like she's ever had chemo, he says. Today, chemo. In two weeks, possibly surgery. We'll have to see what the CT scans show.

And now she is sitting in a bed touting a brave smile and twinkling eyes and a red knit cap. She put on lipstick, and lip liner, too. She is a fine Southern woman. And of course, one of those would wear lipstick and lip liner to chemo.

Slowly, her eyes droop heavily. The anti-nausea medicines precede the anti-cancer in the bloodstream. They work their magic and bring drowsy calm. Keep talking, she says, I'm listening. I make her smile for a twitpic. I label it "Chemo Beauty." Because she is radiant. Here in this place, her love for me, for the lemon cookie nurse, and for the hugging doctor is deep and real and blazing.

Finally, she says that she is trying to stay awake until I leave. Until I leave to drive back to my life and my little world that is free of the anti-cancer and the anti-nausea medicine. I take it as my cue to go, to let her rest. I hug her. I hug my grandfather. I walk away and say, I love you, see you in three weeks. My grandfather smiles kind.

My eyes brim as I walk down the hall. I should go to the restroom before I get on the road. The restroom by the hospital room is occupied. I walk to the waiting room. I wait. There, too, the women's restroom is occupied. I stand for what feels like eternity, trying to maintain composure. To convince myself that yes, I should head home. Yes, it is time to leave. Why won't someone come out of the bathroom?

I approach the receptionist's desk for directions to another restroom. The third option: occupied. This leaves the fourth restroom on the floor at the end of the open chemotherapy treatment area. I gaze towards the bathroom door. It is thirty paces. A gauntlet of chemo patients.

To my left are countless partitions with patients seating between the walls. They are young and old. Black and white. Bald and wigged. The IVs are beeping as the anti-cancer invades. To my right are the friends, the daughters, the grandsons, the husbands. They sit across the pathway with newspapers and magazine and make small talk. A little girl in a red Softball jersey perches on a stool, one leg tucked under the other.

I walk the plank.

My eyes smart. My ears ring. All I can do is peel my eyes from their eyes--so many eyes--and focus forward. I cross the threshold and close the bathroom door with relief. I begin to cry. The ugly cry. The cry of red splotches and heaving and blurred vision. The eyes are all stories and they are stories like mine. The old are all someone's grandmother and the right-sided caregivers are the grown daughters saying please, eat one more bite.

I cannot breathe. I try to stop crying. I try to dab cold water under my eyes. I put on my glasses in an effort to hide the puffiness. I cannot drive; I cannot leave. I attempt composure and walk back to the hospital room past all the stories.

My grandmother is asleep, mouth agape. My grandfather reading, looks up. I start in, It took me forever to find a bathroom so I thought I would just stay a little while longer. And maybe we could have lunch.

This sentence is interrupted by loud hiccups, strangled sobs. He looks at me and smiles kind. He leans forward and crooks his neck to see my grandmother. She is out, he says. How about we go to lunch now?

I nod my head in agreement, pick up my purse and in two steps we are out the door. My brimming eyes glaze over and again I cannot see. The tears are hot and I know they will not be contained. My grandfather tries to put his arm around me but my purse is too big. My too-big purse, the one that is supposed to help me look slim, repels hugs and I now hate it. And I hate the cry squeals that cannot be muffled. My grandfather grabs my hand instead and he leads me out of the Schumpert Cancer Treatment Center into the maze of hospital corridors.

He rescues me from the overwhelming stories, ours and theirs. My grandfather--the Chief Master Sergeant, the carpenter, the fisherman--now tenderly leading me away from all the pain.

We reach the cafeteria. His meal fried chicken and turnip greens, mine fruit and Diet Dr. Pepper. He blesses it: Thank you, Father, for another great day. Thank you for the blessings you have given us. Thank you for taking care of us.

Yes, thank you. Thank you, God, for cancer.

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"Only the Word is the answer to rightly reading the world, because The Word has nail-scarred hands that cup our face close, wipe away the tears running down, has eyes to look deep into our brimming ache, and whisper, "I know. I know." The passion on the page is a Person, and the lens I wear of the Word is not abstract idea but the eyes of the God-Man who came and knows the pain."

- From One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp