Mourning

It has been a long week.  I've reached the end of my radiation treatment - just one more session tomorrow morning and I'm done - but I don't feel particularly celebratory or relieved.  The past week has left me in a deep state of mourning and reflection.
I did not know the four Americans killed in Benghazi on Tuesday  night - Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and the two former Navy SEALs providing security at the Consulate, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty - but the Foreign Service is a very small community and we all feel strongly connected to one another.  I remember them, I grieve for their families and I honor their work and their sacrifice.

I felt a particular kinship when I read the biography of Ambassador Stevens  - a fellow Northern Californian, he did a foreign exchange with AFS while in high school, and came back to study history at UC Berkeley.  He joined the Peace Corps after graduation, served two years in Morocco, and fell in love with the region.  If there is such a thing, it seems like a pretty typical path to the Foreign Service.  He seemed to embody the passion, commitment, and calling that I have appreciated and admired in many friends and colleagues.
I found this blog post from a fellow FSO to be a very simple, personal, and moving tribute to Ambassador Stevens.

http://lifeafterjerusalem.blogspot.com/2012/09/who-chris-was-to-me.html

Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of the tough news for the week.  Another colleague passed away after battling cancer.  While we only served together briefly, she generously offered me honest and intelligent advice after I received my own diagnosis.  Her words gave me a profound lift and sense of hope during a difficult time.  I don't think I can overstate how helpful our conversation was to me.  I was joyful when I heard that she had received an onward overseas assignment and deeply saddened to hear the news of her passing.

I've continued to walk to my treatment appointments at UCSF which takes me across Golden Gate Park and into the Inner Sunset.  I split this two hours between listening to music and walking in silence.  A song came up randomly on my iPod early in the week that I hadn't heard in a long time and it hit me in a surprising and profound way.  It was "Crepuscule With Nellie" from 1957's Monk's Music by The Thelonious Monk Septet.  

It has that weird, wonderful, and idiosyncratic Monk timing that starts and stops, crashes and then whispers.  I wasn't sure why but I found it soothing and comforting.  It became my soundtrack for the week, I listened to a dozen or more times.  I finally read that Monk wrote it before his beloved wife Nellie was scheduled to have surgery and it clicked.  I hear the wide range of emotion - joy, concern, celebration, loss, and most of all love - in the tone and unique rhythm of the song.

I'm still doing well physically and while tired, I feel significantly better than when I began this new path in July.  When I met with my radiation oncologist on Friday, she couldn't have been more pleased with how I've fared through treatment.  It will take some time, perhaps a month or two, before the effect of the radiation will start to show up on scans so I still need to stockpile some patience.  But I'm very encouraged that I'm feeling well at this stage and I feel hopeful that before too long, I will be back with friends and colleagues doing the work that I love.