Seeing in THE LIGHT FROM HERE
Turning points come in all shapes and sizes. They can arrive on their own schedule and feel more like curses than opportunities, like Maureen Egan’s cancer diagnosis. What we do in such encounters matters.
A diagnosis of breast cancer caused artist Maureen Egan to turn inward, and that profound introspection led her to heightened awareness of and appreciation for the people around her. Her responses to interviewer Amy Canfield’s questions show that her diagnosis and treatment provided a critical turning point in her life. http://mygenerationmaine.com/2018/09/07/much-love-surrounds-us/
Unintended and undesired, her predicament led to ironic insight: “For years I had been struggling to embrace the concept of abundance, with limited results. It took a catastrophic diagnosis like cancer to do the job with a series of unexpected gifts.”
Maureen Egan had drawn the cancer card, but along with it came a “full house” of love and support that enabled her to grow in unexpected ways. She SAW things differently. She recognized what was there all around her. Of course, what we do with the cards we are dealt makes a difference. In time, Egan created grateful art and a rich memoir.
I had heard about her saga from mutual friends but have only met her once, when I bought my copy of THE LIGHT FROM HERE: A BREAST CANCER STORY.
As I wrote several months ago in an Amazon review of her memoir, “Maureen Egan notices the small and important things and knows what to do with them, both as a person and as a writer. Because THE LIGHT FROM HERE is so well written, it reads fast, but it deserves and rewards the kind of attention that Egan gives to the brutal surprises that life gives her. Her searingly honest account of her confrontation with breast cancer pulls the reader along, gracefully shining light on the sources of her strength. If men who care about women read one book this year, it should be THE LIGHT FROM HERE.”
Ned Bachus 