Reflecting Pane

The Cockroach Whisperer

A few months out from surgery, chemo, and radiation — I felt broken, lost, un-pieced.

But somehow my scars formed the shapes of question marks, all asking, how to build a mosaic of grateful pieces?

Although part of me was still frozen in fear.

I

I was in the garden one afternoon, pitchfork in hand, turning over the compost. And then I was recoiling, appalled, revolted.

I had unearthed a hotbed of writhing insects. They were amassing like my fears into a roiling incubation. A festering heap.

Everyone knows that the cockroaches will be the sole survivors of the apocalypse. And here they were, a black mass in my own back yard—broiling — a hostile takeover of my survivalist nightmares.

Bigger than a beach ball, they rose into a chittering cloud, then detonated into a thousand flight paths. Who knew cockroaches have wings? I didn’t.

Blight-footed, I fled inside. Slamming the door behind me — I panic-checked the windows before bunkering down into my own nest of unrest.

Maybe this was just the ‘chemo-brain’ talking, but when you get swarmed by an angry nest of cockroaches, it seems like a very bad sign — for your survival.

II

Everything seemed normal, for a few days. Maybe my bunker was secure from this foul infestation?

But then I saw it! The dark hoodlum of oblivion scuttled across the floor like a shiver of panic. Staying close to the wall, the little horseman of the apocalypse galloped through my bedroom to hide in the closet.

I was yelling with outrage. Dark thoughts swarmed my head. Was this a sign? Were the rouge cells creeping back through my defences. Was cancer re-infesting my life?

I had to put an end to this foul encroachment!

Clearly, one of us had to die.

It was me or the cockroach.

III

Reaching into the far corners of my closet, I laid down little traps for my enemy’s annihilation.

Then I waited… as the days passed

And passed.

Occasionally, the little beast would startle me in a scuttle-rush around the room.

Triggered by its panic, I learned how one damn insect can make me feel small, and very, very slow.

More time passed and all the sticky traps were still empty. Had the invader already laid its eggs to metastasize in the closet?

IV

Then one morning, as I walked into the bedroom, I stopped, suddenly. No reason whatsoever.

Dead.

Still.

Standing in the center of the room, staring up at the ceiling, just wondering.

And when I looked down, there it was, at my feet. My invertebrate nemesis was waiting for me, out in the open.

This seemed like a good sign. Was it giving itself up for execution?

The sole of my foot itched. Should I stomp on it? After all, this was the moment I had been waiting for.

But oddly, that seemed brutal. Messy. Disrespectful.

I looked at the little creature at my feet and whispered, “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Its antennae twitched as if to reply to an insecticidal woman who had just become a cockroach whisperer.

Stealthily, I slipped away in search of something ‘better’ to finish up our story.

Returning, with a rolled up newspaper in my hand. The front page was already splattered with crises.

The creature was waiting for me, which made me feel oddly affectionate. Maybe it was on its last legs? Who knows? But its antennae still twitched in a lively enough way.

Then, there was a thundering Thwack! as all the bad news came crashing down on its head.

I like to think it was a meaningful death, as I slammed my final point home.

V

No one gets sentimental about cockroaches or cancer. So it felt good to pulverize it.

But still, I feel grateful to that little critter — so reviled.

I was going crazy with fear, and it helped me tell a better story to myself, about my chances for survival.

It reminded me to watch the way my own mind scuttles into dark corners, when I’m triggered by fear.

That was five years ago, and I’m grateful to be a cancer survivor.

But in a world full of crises, I hanker for a better story than a sole survivor alone in a bunker, at the end of the world.

And slowly, healing forms these scars into question marks, asking how to re-write our stories into webs of wonder? How to weave a better nest for all of life’s young? How to re-build ourselves into mosaics of grateful peaces?

Repatriated to creation, how to root for all life? Yours. Mine. Mycelium. Sea grass. Insects.

Yes. All of it. Even the damn cockroaches.