Living in the Magic by Chanice Withers, Listener Poet

Origin Story

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31. Despite the challenges, she expressed profound gratitude for living in a human body and reflected on her transformative journey of self-discovery. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she described receiving the gift of time to connect with herself and learn how to truly listen within. Through her experience with cancer, she has come to understand what is truly important in life.

She also spoke about the beauty of the changing leaves in Utah, drawing a poignant parallel to her experiences with people and the bittersweet pain of goodbyes. She reflected that while the leaves may go, the roots stay – symbolizing the resilience of her relationship with her partner. Together, they weather life’s storms, always finding their way back to each other.

Throughout our conversation, she embodied the magic of life, underscoring the power of helping others and showing up authentically for ourselves and those around us. Her hope for humanity is simple yet profound: to embrace a new language worth learning – one rooted in love, connection, and compassion.

Chanice Withers, Listener Poet
Our Why: Stories from the American Cancer Society’s Patient Support Team
November 2024

Living in the Magic

By Chanice Withers, Listener Poet

I don’t want disease to be what wakes others up —

The final firework show arrives
At the beginning of every new day.
It explodes inside of me,
While everything outside my eye
Is full of magic tricks.
What is a magic trick, if not a human
Rising from the root of the body,
Surviving the storm
You weren’t prepared for

The storm I thought would destroy me
Only blew away my leaves,
Changed their colors,
Let them fall —
But they return,
Only to come back for another season.
People come and go,
But when the bow comes untied
We find our way back together
What is a magic trick,
If not a human learning the same lesson?
I have learned hard lessons in this young age
To find out I was ready for a battle I didn’t train for
Yet I was strong enough to rise in it

How incredible is it to help others in this life,
During the fight that takes time to grow from?
The pain of goodbye
Blooms in “I will remember the good memories.”
How we blink in the in-between living,
Reminding us that nothing can be done
In the flick of a finger,
But it’s all being done
In the middle of living.

Still young,
A light met me before the shadow.
A smile that softens the blows
In the wind of a storm —
His magic is bringing the light.
While I am trying to understand myself,
So I can show others they can do the same,
I can’t change your situation or make you understand mine completely.
I cannot erase what has happened to me,
But I can ride the tide with you.
I can tell you how I wash ashore
In a clam shell called home,
Called my body.
Within, that is where it starts.
I don’t want disease to be what wakes others up.
Wake up in the light of life —
Open your eyes
To the fact that I am alive in this new day, so are you
In the body called human,
Whose greatest magic trick
Is to keep moving forward.

More Poems & Stories

No Words Exist (Why They’re Afraid of Us)

“I was at a birth recently and thought: This is why they are so afraid of us. They can’t control this” She sat on her couch with a mug of coffee. She is a queer, femme, mother of two who has worked in reproductive health for over two decades.

Housewarming

Interspersed with the joys and worries of being a gramma, she recounted her own grandparents – challenges and opportunities of caring for them, grief of losing them, gratitude for being loved by them, and the everyday experiences of now living in their home.

Language of Diagnosis

What is pain without a diagnosis? This is what occupied this patient before she even received her breast cancer diagnosis about a year ago.

Gratitude

She told me that she picked her battles more and was trying to be less of a people pleaser.

Growth Phase

He ended up talking about his son, who is now his daughter. Another part of his experience of continual growth and soul-opening.

Dinner

Her values and perspective on life had changed as she considered ways to spend more time with her husband.

American Sonnet for Father Day and the Wisdom Tree

“When I see an old dude who’s optimistic, living his life, I always stop to talk to him to try to find out what he has done.”

enough

This nurse was considering leaving a position where she spent many years due to issues she experienced and witnessed at her hospital.

Variant

Many of the people he worked with had to develop a new identity in the context of their caregiving responsibilities. “It’s as if they need to become a new variant of themselves.”

In the River You May Find Yourself

“We’re taught to enter a room with a specific goal... with assumptions... with a hypothesis about what may be going on with the patient.”

The Shift

She believes that most of those who have connected with ACS began with a personal connection, but then, according to her, “you evolve, and you shift.”

Walk With Me

With her background in counseling and psychology, she works to bring people together and support patients.

Legacy of Hope

Although at times she becomes discouraged about the inequalities in the world, she is determined to do her part by making sure everyone has access to quality healthcare.

Living in the Magic

This person radiated gratitude and hope. She shared that she discovered she was expecting a son just before receiving a lung cancer diagnosis at the age of 31.

The House Medicine Built

She had an epiphany as a child — that love could heal the world. Now, as a seasoned physician, there’s still a part of her that believes in the power of love, but not with the same idealism she once held.

Why Neurologists Write

He talked about recently speaking with a patient who experiences migraines: she is seeking the truth, he is seeking the truth to find a way to work with her, wanting to give more than a diagnosis and prognosis.

I Am Stuck on a Wheel That Keeps Turning

To her, the surgical world has felt like “a wheel that keeps spinning,” a seemingly endless pursuit towards an undefinable goal.

List

While she kept an open mind throughout medical school, the field of OB/GYN ticked off all the boxes for her.

Where Do the Children Play?

“I always took strength from the way little kids would handle it.”

We Shall Know Her Name

“The historic traumas of African-American women — all African-Americans — lead us to not be the first people at the doctors, nor the first to get surgery.”

One Human Body

“Sometimes I feel so helpless,” said this resident, reflecting on all of the challenges faced by the young patients and their families whom she served. Over the last several days, she has become increasingly overwhelmed by events in the news and has questioned her ability to make a difference in the world.

Stories with My Father

“It’s hard to watch the decline and sometimes hard to visit but it weighs on me not to,” she said. Her father had always been an elaborate storyteller and an alive, vibrant man with a big voice.

We Matter, Guys

The Good Listening Project was honored to once again take part in the annual KNN conference in Minneapolis this year. Jenny closed the session by writing this harvest poem that captured the voices and sentiments shared.

In The Middle Way

After a history of crippling endometriosis, this woman had an arduous, ongoing struggle with her healthcare community for the right to have a hysterectomy. She was finally granted approval at the age of 29. “It had been like pulling teeth, but finally I felt free,” she told me.

'O ka mele

Her childhood was infused with Hawaiian-Polynesian music and dance, taught to her father by his mother. Today, her life’s work is to connect the unbelievable discoveries of molecularly focused pre-clinical research directly to the patient experience of treatment.

On the darkest days

She is a single mother born to a single mother and had to grow up fast. She is juggling a sticky work situation, her own anxiety and depression, and being away from home and her kids.

This Healing Place

I was invited to create a group poem for forty participants at the Arts in Healing luncheon, hosted by the Inova Health Foundation in partnership with the board.

What You Will Call Me

What does it mean for people living with Sickle Cell Disease to be seen, heard, and understood? For this person, it meant finding – and using – her voice to advocate for herself and for others.