A culture of healing
“Third culture kids” are children who are raised in a culture (or several) other than the one that is native to them. They grow up feeling that they don’t truly belong in their adoptive countries or in their country of origin. My father was a NATO colonel who, after the Vietnam war, was assigned to Rome and then to Naples, Italy. I spent my adolescence in international schools, feeling neither here nor there—not Italian, really, but where in the States could I call home after moving every couple of years depending on the whims of my father’s career?
When I went back to the U.S. for college, I suffered true culture shock: I had not grown up on television, did not know how to drive, had never been out on a date—things that seemed so crucial to budding American adulthood.
I never did really discover a sense of belonging in the country I believed was my own. But somehow my career—through fits and starts and mysterious swerves—managed to lead me right back to Italy, where I found myself teaching other third culture kids, an outcome that made satisfyingly good sense for twenty-odd years. I felt that I was doing what I was born to do and was right where I belonged—until I got cancer. Then everything stopped making sense.
In the face of terminal cancer, Italy’s National Health Service is a godsend. I don’t make a great salary, and I certainly had not accumulated much in the way of savings, given the fact that I spent every extra bit of income traveling to the States. I was 64 when diagnosed with Stage 4c adenocarcinoma, which (after a first surgery to remove my ovaries and a second to remove my sigmoid colon) mostly remained in my peritoneum—inoperably spread through all quadrants. I might have wished to return to the States for treatment—to be near family (I have three children). But before I qualified for Medicare, it made no sense financially. Under Italian national health care, there are absolutely no expenses for a “chronic condition” such as terminal colon cancer. Plus, I was entitled to a year’s sick leave at full salary. Sick as I was, how could I afford to start my life all over again stateside? It was my good fortune to live in a country where I could afford the best of care, but I felt terribly alone.
I found Healing Circles Global by listening to an “On Being” episode featuring Rachel Naomi Remen. Everything she spoke of in her interview with Krista Tippet aligned with what I believe about healing the whole person versus curing disease, having the confidence to live the heart’s truth, and striking out into the world to give where your offering is most needed. Within hours of hearing the podcast, I’d found Healing Circles Global at Commonweal and was already communicating with a staff member there.
I was diagnosed in 2022, after the pandemic necessitated HCG’s transition to holding circles online. Within a week, I was welcomed into a Living with Cancer circle made up of women who’d been meeting weekly for years — long past their clearly invalid expiration dates! Their welcome was so generous that I felt an immediate sense of belonging. I also felt the strange paradox that circle devotees often allude to: circles make the worst thing that can happen to you suddenly seem like the best thing. How else would we have ever found each other and the mystical healing process that occurs through the deep listening, trust, acceptance and the ceremonial magic of meeting in circle?
Healing Circles Global does not simply offer a service. It is a movement that models, in its purest sense, what a democracy can be. Members offer their “heart share” and thereby acquire a stronger and clearer voice. Everyone learns to listen, to trust the silence and what emerges from it, and to trust the mystery beyond an itchiness to advise or fix. We witness healing in ourselves and in each other.
In the year and a half that I’ve been involved with HCG, I have been privileged to participate in the outreach of a growing community of European circles. I’ve also been able to apply the circle’s guiding principles to my teaching and the extended community of the International Baccalaureate.
I have indeed lived past my “projected expiration date.” I’m still working and find that engaging with my students and co-workers enhances my well-being and belief in my viability. I have also discovered a profound sense of belonging through the surprise gift of a new third culture: the men and women of the cancer world who have learned through the shock of a difficult diagnosis to forge new models of life-giving community.
