Paola, Belgium

Letter to my body

During the treatments for my cancer, I came to terms with a forced cohabitation between me and my body. There could be no escape. Maybe for the first time in my life I realized me and her, her and me, we were the same thing. This is a letter to my body, who has endured, fought, surrender, at times, but never, never given up.

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Living is first and foremost a matter of the body. It’s always me and my body, it’s still me and my body, we’re together, and I can’t leave it. I often think that we’ll never leave each other again, if not on the threshold of the last step, the step of death. In some trembling moments, when the air gets heavier, there seems to be no room for anything else, for anyone else.

I am her and she is me.
I am you and you are me.

I love you so much, I have never loved you this much.
In reality, I wish I had started sooner, I wish I had loved you like this before. Before the illness, before everything. I no longer want to walk beside you, I no longer want to be near you to escape your eyes, often looking away, to the other side of us. This span of distance between us is an ocean wide, and it makes no sense, it makes no sense at all.
I only exist if you protect me, and you — you only exist if I protect you.

I am you and you are me.

Cancer happened to us, to us both because we are one.
We stay together. United, forgiving, remembering.