Every other Tuesday morning, my husband and I climb into our minivan with snacks, water, hiking sticks, warm socks, and gloves. A casual observer might assume we are off on a mountain hike. We are actually headed to the hospital for my biweekly chemotherapy infusions.
We pull up to the clinic, where I’m welcomed into the lobby like an old friend. “How are you this morning, Sis?” My favorite hospital greeter checks me in and sends me up to the sixth floor with a warm smile. I enter the waiting room and take a seat.
When I began my chemo treatments, I would wait anxiously for my name to be called. After ten infusion visits, I now know I cannot control how long I will need to wait. I pull out a book about building emotional resilience in children and begin taking notes. I look out of the gigantic glass window in front of me and take in the bustling city of Baltimore. My mind wanders to the songs I want played at my funeral. One of the songs reminds me of a writing class I want to take, so I pull out my computer and register for the class. Finally, I check my online colorectal cancer support group and notice that a couple of group members died this week. One of them lived with Stage 4 colon cancer for five years, the other for only 18 months. I close the computer.
My mind drifts back to the morning of my oldest daughter’s eleventh birthday in March. I remember sitting in my bedroom, staring at the grainy image of a surgeon on my laptop screen. “Chemotherapy is your only option. Your liver tumors will never be operable,” he said bluntly—the unceremonious beginning to a major life change.
This brief exchange elicited some dusty thought patterns I had worked hard to eliminate through years of therapy. My ongoing struggles with obesity and diabetes finally defiled my tabernacle to the degree that I will die in my forties due to my own poor health decisions. I hold a public health degree and have always lived in close proximity to a Whole Foods. I’m one of the deserving young cancer patients rather than the cancer heroes who run marathons and never eat too much ice cream after a bad breakup.
My husband and I ultimately decided to fly our family across the country, in closer proximity to a specialist at Johns Hopkins and extended family support. Again, the old thought patterns emerged. I will need to leave my home in a state of irreparable filth, reflecting my illness and my months of confinement with all five family members working and learning remotely. We’ll need to board the place up. No one should ever see the squalor in which we’ve been living.
The next day, a dear friend called and begged me to let her clean my home. After repeated refusals, I finally agreed when I realized she would not take no for an answer. I reluctantly left her a house key, rationalizing that as someone who might soon die of cancer, I had no remaining dignity. I might as well let the world see who I really am.
I flew to Maryland to begin treatment while my friends organized and cleaned my California home. My medical care team put me on an aggressive chemotherapy routine. My tumors began to shrink inside my sick body as my house was restored to a place of beauty and order.
We now live in a Maryland rental home. For me, this is another type of waiting room—a stay of unknown duration that mirrors the uncertainty in my own body’s medical prognosis. My eight-year-old asks when we will be able to go back to our now-spotless home in California. “I don’t know,” I say. My six-year-old asks if I will always be bald. I give him the same reply. I do not know if or when my treatment schedule and prognosis will allow me to return to our home in California. I do not know if or when my body will ever be rid of tumors. What I do know is that my doctors and my friends did what I could not do for myself. Today, sitting in the waiting room seems tolerable, and I am able to find hope despite the uncertainty.
Last Sunday, I attended Gospel Doctrine for the first time in several months. The lesson was on the three degrees of glory in the afterlife. My mind wandered as the discussion veered towards who is going to which kingdom. While I’m more aware of my own mortality now than ever, I have little interest in questions about my own worthiness or the intricacies of the eternal reward system.
Instead, I feel called to another work—homemaking. For some, homemaking is a word that conjures images of intricate Relief Society craft projects decorating the walls. For others, it is a mandate to maintain a pristine home in perfect working order. Even before my cancer diagnosis, I disliked house cleaning and DIY projects. My children wear the same dirty socks for days. I’m constantly tripping over Lego bricks and Playmobil figures scattered across the floor. And I can’t count the number of unfinished Relief Society projects stored away in my overstuffed closets.
Right now—stuck in a literal and figurative waiting room—homemaking means something different to me. It is the sacred work of building a place of comfort and growth even in a time of uncertainty. Within the Church, we are taught to honor the past and focus on the future. But when the past is imperfect and the future is unknown, the best gift I can give to myself and my family lies in intangible emotional and spiritual support.
In our waiting room, homemaking is checking in with the kids before bedtime on how my cancer is impacting them. It is mustering up the energy to sit at the table for a family meal. It is laughing when my kids make colon cancer bathroom jokes. It is beginning every chemo infusion session with a video reminding the kids to hydrate or brush their teeth or believe in themselves and know that their mother will always love them. It is talking about life after death whenever the topic comes up, no matter how inconvenient or painful. It is planning family vacations I may never take and having the courage to take them when I can. It is maintaining career ambitions while making room for unexpected paths. It is palliative care for me and my family.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the nurse calling out my name. I stand and proceed through the double doors, leaving the literal waiting room behind. I do not know how many more times I will pass through those doors. Each time, I carry with me the same ambitions, practical concerns, and dreams for my family as I had before the diagnosis. Yet I also carry with me the new realization that my cancer has disrupted and will continue to disrupt many of these dreams. The waiting room between these two realities is the place where I now exist and must make a home for me and my family.
True to my Mormon upbringing, I will continue the work of homemaking once I depart from this life’s waiting room. I’ll be peering in on my family and supporting them from beyond the veil. These days, I often find myself humming “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” with Isaac Watts’ interpretation of Psalm 23 ringing in my ears:
There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come;
No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.
Sometime in the future, this homemaker will stand next to her heavenly parents to lead her family to a settled rest in yet another home. Perhaps in a new waiting room.
Sarah Kippen Wood is from Livermore, CA and is currently residing with her husband and three children in Frederick, MD. She holds a Master of Public Health degree from Boston University and until recently was Executive Director of Their Story Is Our Story, a nonprofit focused on refugee storytelling. In March 2021, Sarah was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer and began writing about her own life navigating a terminal illness while parenting young children.
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