Weekly Round-Up: The World Kindness Day Edition

Time for this week’s round-up of the best of the blog posts which I’ve read over the past week. These are the posts that have moved me, taught me something, inspired me, and that I’ve wanted to share with you. Don’t forget that if you have written a post that you would like readers to see, just leave a comment below.

As we approach the season of Thanksgiving, Terri takes a moment to honor all those who give selflessly of their time to help her in her pursuit of educating and supporting those who are affected by breast cancer.

Sticking with the theme of gratitude, Nancy reflects on its complexity in her latest post The Ungrateful Cancer Patient.

Barbara is experiencing an uncharacteristic “hole in her pre-holiday spirit”

Lisa Laudico, who created Our MBC Life died on Aug. 6, 2022, from MBC. In the show’s recent podcast episode, Lisa’s friends, family, and colleagues remember her amazing life and celebrate the many ways she fostered connection, resilience & hope in the MBC community.

A powerful reflection on healthy inequity and access from Abigail.

Gabby offers advice on the benefits of relaxation.

Rod shares the male breast cancer experience in a guest post for Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

Gogs writes of making make peace with his rising PSA after prostatectomy.

A welcome return to Audrey to the blogosphere this week.

Finally this week, in honour of World Kindness Today which takes place today, a poem on kindness.

Until next week,

Yours with much love always

Marie xxx

 Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

 Naomi Shihab Nye

from The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems