Susan Navissi: Feelings from Afar

Living Beyond Breast Cancer hosts 3 national conferences, 14 national teleconferences and offers a toll-free Survivor’s Helpline that we know many women across the United States utilize. However, women all over the world have been affected my breast cancer and we are honored to know that are services are reaching to other parts of the world. For this month’s first installment of “Living Beyond Breast Cancer’s Writer’s Corner,” we welcome Susan Navissi, a strong survivor from Berlin, Germany.

Diving

breathe breathe dear, don’t be scared
– concentrate on your work, survive
and dive dive – through these dark times
where fear is your companion
and love has to fight so hard to come through

and then, when you come up after a dive
look around and see -clear now
what you need , whom you want, where you want to be
and why this life shall be lived fully

uma soona

September 2011

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Agreements

this precious beautiful cancer sister wrote:

it may sound strange but what I did was asking it to go away
suggesting it may be a star in the dark blue sky
so I will not forget, for I do like to watch the stars.

dearest sister, no it does not seem strange
same did I – drowned mine in the little lake
asking it to never ever come back
for I do not need it, but do like to watch the water.

what else do we do while healing?
crying rivers, wearing our wellingtons to jump in the puddles
convulsing in pain, reading the news who shall be bombed next
hugging our loved ones, drinking each good word, look and touch.

whether healthy or ill
listening to lullabies of the axis of evil
may make you think
about human kind

November 2011

antiope

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(*Note: As Susan’s native language is German, we felt it only appropriate to include some of her work in her own “voice.*)

Rosennacht

Die erste Nacht war voller Rosenduft

Küsse regneten auf meinen Körper

weich und zärtlich

von den schönsten Lippen

Ich werde arm sein, erklärte ich,

keine Bücher mehr und keine Schuhe!

dann werden wir barfuß in die Bibliothek gehen,

sagtest du- und ich habe dir geglaubt

Immer wollte mein Körper neben deinem liegen.

Blind war ich und taub

Vergewaltigende, Furie, Irre, Schamlose

und zärtlich, sorgend und liebevoll.

Nach allem, was  mein Körper kennen lernte,

Holocaust, Fukushima und Mansonism

bin ich trotzdem noch erstaunt

über das

was war

damals,

in der Nacht als alles nach Rosen roch…

du, ich, die Nacht und die Zukunft, die zwischen uns lag.

Kali

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“I send my best wishes and love to all my sisters out there, being all brave and enduring this.”

Born in Berlin, Germany, Susan is a mother of a 24 year old son and was diagnosed with a triple negative tumor involving the lymph nodes in  june 2011 at age 44. In the middle of political upheaval, the responsibility of success  at work phase and in love after a bad time; it just did not fit. Fortunately, Susan had access to her feelings of fear and terror and expressed them in poems and paintings. Susan has made is through chemo, surgery and rehab and lives every day saying “I am healthy and will become very old.” Living Beyond Breast Cancer will be hosting another Fall Writing the Journey Series where survivors can creatively express and document their own feelings starting October 9th.