Nancy Duncan's first journey with Cancer

Nancy Duncan became my mother-in-law after my marriage to her daughter Lucy in 2001. She was an amazingly busy person with her passion and ability in Storytelling, her friendships, and her huge collection of pictures of clothes lines and roadkill across America, and goodness knows what else.

Shortly after I got to know her, she found that breast cancer had returned, metastasized in her liver, but this is the story of her first brush with Cancer, and what she learned from it.

When I was in the fifth grade, I was in love with a tall blonde boy by the name of Clinton. I brought hard candies to school and slipped them into his desk when Miss Fugit had her back turned. One day Clinton looked at me with this sort of sweet/sad expression and I thought, uh, oh, here it comes. "Nancy, you are very nice, but I'm in love with Lethe Hunter because she has mountains on her chest."

In the 7th grade, I was waiting in line with the rest of the girls in my class while our gym teacher pinned tucks in the bodices of our May Day costumes. When it was my turn I said, Miss Ligon, you didn’t pin any tucks! She said: You don't need any tucks.

In the 8th grade, I was obsessed with French & typing. I practiced both in bed, typing out the French words with my toes. One night, my grandmother, who shared my bedroom with me for eight years, shook me awake: "Nancy, I don’t mind your talking in your sleep, but you have to speak English." "What was I saying?" "Sounded like the grand tutton." "Oh, it's a joke, Les Grands Tetons, those mountains in Wyoming, the Big Tits!" Ah," my grandmother scooped me into her arms, and I nestled on the huge shelf of her bosom. It was perfectly clear to me that tucks are essential, breasts are flesh, not rock.

Les Grandes Tetons

I did experiment with falsies for a while. You have to imagine what courage it took in 1949 to even discover the store where they were sold in Atlanta, GA, and then more courage to go and buy them. I had to whittle them down a little. These could possibly have sprouted over a weekend? But they were a nuisance because they migrated around inside my clothes. One day in the cafeteria line, I reached up over the counter to get my plate, and looking down, saw two breasts, like a stoplight, right in the middle of my chest.

I finally just gave them up; they were too much trouble. And at my women’s college, I got to play all the men’s parts, sometimes even in a full beard, in what were known in Atlanta as the best drag shows in town. Who needed breasts?

But eventually, with a lot of encouragement, affection, and practical assistance from Harry Duncan, along came our children, Barnaby, Lucy, and Guy, and breasts that waxed and waned, waxed and waned, and waned. But this was the 60’s! Everyone I knew, except my mother, burned their bras, and the world was filled with breasts of all sizes, jiggling & bouncing in liberation!

Finally, I bought a bra in celebration of the fact that I’d graduated from an A to a B cup! Well, I had to buy a bra just to figure that out.

In March of 2000, on a Tuesday night, I discovered a lump in my right breast. An inch and a half long, big around as my finger, hard as a rock. I knew it was cancer, but I scheduled a mammogram for Wednesday. to be assured by my doctor from the dimpling on the surface and the size, shape, etc., that I was probably right. There was a biopsy on Friday, and then waiting over a long, long weekend for the official confirmation. If Harry had been alive, perhaps I'd have just popped him in the car and whisked him off to an intimate weekend in McCook, NE, who knows? But he wasn't.

I rented a bunch of sad movies, bought a murder mystery by Josephine Tey, and made a nest for myself in the sofa bed in the library, all the green tea I could possibly want, pillows, a notepad and paper, and a big box of Jordan almonds. For the first time since I can remember, I turned off the telephone.

Most of Saturday was soggy. I was regretting all the things I wouldn’t get to do if I died. I fired God, several times and hired her back. I progressed from this to planning my funeral. The final version of it included six 7 X 10 rear projection screens, 12 projectors, and all 986 slides from my recent major theatrical production, with personalized listening stations & pre-recorded audio messages for everyone.

On Sunday, I was bored by the sad movies, relished the murder mystery & the almonds and began to think of action as a possibility.

Ye gods, is there a war in my own body? How can I handle this? I'm a pacifist. What I need now is a cancer-threatening LIFE.

Then I planned the funerals of about six people who need to die before I do.

By Monday, I was ready for the news. A grade 3 aggressive tumor. Mastectomy scheduled for March 21st. Then I told my family and my friends.

Their responses extend along a sort of continuum of condolence. At the left is something like: "It makes me sad to see you in so much pain. I'm leaving soup on your front porch. Give me something to do."

In the middle: "Nancy, you are a survivor, a fighter through and through, even though you weren't born here, you are a Nebraskan in your soul, go big RED!"

And at the far end: "Thank you for being a part of my life. I just want you to know I’ll never forget you."

Several said, "Nancy, cancer is going to teach you many lessons. The most important is for you to learn how to allow us to love you.."

One friend didn’t say anything. I sank into wonderful, deep hugs - the magnificent comfort of Les Grand Tetons!

I had trouble sleeping because my breasts whispered to each other in the night.

R: You were the one the doctor was watching. Why isn't it you?

L: Try to imagine how I'm going to suffer carrying the burden of suspicion all by myself.

R: It’s her fault she never really valued either of us.

L: She ate a lot of crunchy vegetables. Didn’t they like her?

R: I’m frightened. I was too small to even be a memory.

L: Hmmm, a mammary memory. I'm going to miss you.

R: If there is any chance I can come back as a ghost, you are the one I’m going to haunt!

I immediately drafted two friends to help make a rubber mold of my right breast, so she could be a memory. When I told my thirteen-year-old British grandson, Matthew, that I was going to send him a chocolate breast for Xmas, he said, "You’re weird, Nancy." A week later, he called to say, "Uh, Nancy, you know that chocolate breast? Well, you don’t need to send it, because it would, it’s well, you know, it might, uh, it would melt!"

"I get it, Matthew, a chocolate breast from your grandmother could be too much for a thirteen-year-old. Don't worry about it, Matthew; that breast has been rejected by other people before you. I'll send it to you when you're eighteen."

He must have thought he’d hurt my feelings, rejecting something so intimate, because a week later he phoned back. "Nancy, you know that chocolate breast, well, could I have it in toffee apple flavor?"

UNMC

I began serious bargaining with my surgeon. "Look," I said, "I'm not going to have all that reconstruction business, taking skin and fat from my belly and moving it up to my chest, tattooing on a nipple to make it look like a real breast that won't ever FEEL anything because it hasn't any nerves - I can see how it could be an option for someone younger, but I'm too old, don't want any of that, BUT the insurance company doesn't know. SO, could you just take 4 little tucks, two each on the sides of my face, right here by the hairline, and sort of lift everything up, and put it on the insurance papers as RECONSTRUCTION?"

He laughed, but said he wasn't the guy to do it. When I first saw the scar he left on my chest, I was shocked & thought he was probably right. I wouldn’t want anything like that on my FACE! But now that I've seen a variety of other scars, I realize how skillful he is and think I could have been happy with whatever he'd managed to come up with.

My friends from all over the country began to call with stories of their own cancers, prepping me for what was to come. Thelma said her first chemo treatment was ghastly, but about twelve days later, her husband, John, took her to Kansas City to celebrate. They planned to visit the museums, shop, and eat in wonderful restaurants. As they walked across the bridge into the Plaza, a gust of wind lifted Thelma’s hair and took a large hank of it off in front of her over the water. "My gosh, by the time I get to the restaurant, I’ll be bald." Another gust of wind, more hair, this time rising in front of them as they came off the bridge. "Oh," said Thelma, "I know what a tree feels like in the Fall." A bird flew in, grabbed a wad in its mouth. "Look, Thelma, you’re going to be part of someone’s nest."

Germelina called from Kearney, NE: "Nancy, about a month after my mastectomy, my whole family signed up for a golf tournament, and I decided to go along just to save my marriage. I didn’t have my prosthesis yet. The cancer society gave me this cotton substitute to stuff into my old bra, and even though I had large breasts, I thought I could make it work. But I'm a terrible golfer, I decided the one thing I could do well on this trip is to look good. So I bought a bunch of new outfits. We went to the tournament, and I met another friend there, also a bad golfer, so we played together. About the third day, we were between the 4 & 5th holes, when I said, "Oh, my goodness, I’ve lost my breast." I had to tell her the whole story, and then we started to look for it. There it was, a white tent of cotton, lying in the middle of the fairway behind us, looking like a Denver airport for crickets. My friend said, "Germelina, that has nothing to do with you. It never had anything to do with you. Absolve yourself of that breast." So we ignored it and played through.

At the end of the tournament, everyone in my family, even the 8-year-old, won some kind of trophy for their excellent playing. After all the trophies were given out, the MC said they were giving a very special new trophy this year, and called me up to the podium. I was so embarrassed. He said, "Germelina, we are giving you this trophy because you are the best dressed golfer." I said, "You shouldn’t give me this. I don't deserve it. Because right in the middle of the tournament, I lost my shoulder pad."

Twelve days after my first chemo, all my gray hair began to come out in the brush, so I trimmed it to a half-inch. One morning, a week later, all the dark hair hit the floor of the shower stall. Wow, I thought, a photo opportunity. I rearranged the hairs into words. In upper case I spelled "HELP". And in lower case I spelled "Leaving" with the tail of the g going down into the drain. And I saved all the hairs themselves to use in a little voodoo doll, just in case for one of the people who should die.

Chemotherapy.

I suppose there are some people out there who have it easy, but for me there is only one world to describe it: HELL. I survived my first three months of a mix including Adriamycin & Cytoxan pretty well. The anti-nausea medications really do work - at $50 a pill! I'd be sick for three days and then gradually regain my energy over the next three weeks until I was zonked again. But when the regime changed to Taxol for three months, ARRRGG!

Taking the drug wasn't the problem, just four hours in a recliner, reading or listening to tapes. But four days later, WHAM. Horrible deep bone pain from my knees to my toes, and ZAP, suddenly a fleet of nettle fish began to swim through my nerves, shooting poisonous darts every 40 seconds. The darts hit one at a time, wherever: my neck, my groin, my armpit, intense stinging for 10 seconds, fading into a "whacked my funny bone" sort of tingle. This assault of side-effects lasted a full week, the first round (I can live through HELL if it only lasts a week), two weeks the second (I can live through HELL if it only lasts two weeks), but three the third (I’m not really sure I can live through HELL if it never stops).

The pain and darts were masked by painkillers, but they, too, had their side-effects, and I languished in a lalaland of wobbly dreaming, stretched out on my bed, restricted from everything but the walkabouts in my mind to all the places I had been and loved. As my anxiety built for the fourth and last dose, I gave up. I told my oncologist, "I just can’t do this again, my hands and my feet are numb - I just don't want to lose their feeling forever." Her response was: "Well, all the studies are on eight treatments, we don’t have any on seven. It's your choice; 7/8th of a cup should be as good as a full one. See you in January."

Most of my friends and family supported my choice. (They know me well enough to know they’d better.) One friend said it made him anxious to think I hadn't done all I could do to stay alive because he wanted me to stay alive. I said, "Thanks, you’re welcome to take that last dose for me."

One doctor friend who has just finished his chemo for leukemia said he was afraid, should my cancer (god, forbid) recur, that I would blame myself for not taking that last treatment. Hmmm, yes, perhaps, and yet if that should happen, I'll have so many more potent rages to occupy my mind. There’s that major, ongoing rage: Why is so little being done to find the cause? Billions of dollars are being made on the CURE, but if we take the cause into our minds, do we discover that we are all culpable, all afraid to change our lives?

My family, especially the youngest members of it, had trouble with my chemotherapy, not so much because I was suffering from it, but because I lost my hair. My granddaughters, Louise, age 8, known as Weezie, and Beatrice, age 6, said, "Maga, please, when you come to our soccer games or plays at school, could you wear your hat? Would you get a wig?" I said, "GRRRR, I don't want a wig, it is summer, it is so hot, when I put on a wig it feels as if I had a cat on my head." "But, Maga, please could you wear your cap. All of our friends say, "Your grandmother looks weird."

One afternoon they came over with their mother to take me out to lunch. I headed out the door, bald, and Weezie said, "Maga, could you put on your hat? " OOOF, I said, "Weezie, it is too hot to have to wear a hat, there is nothing wrong with being bald." Weezie shrugged and looked at the floor. Her mother intervened, "Louise, what is on the outside doesn't matter, it is what is inside that counts. What if, when you Dad came to propose to me, what if I had said "Guy, I love you more than anyone else in the world, I can't imagine spending my life with anyone but you, BUT you are two short.' " Weezie shrugged again, looked up at me with a big smile on her face and said, "Maga, PUT ON YOUR HAT!"

This story isn’t really over. I realize that many of the meanings of my journey are still a mystery. I miss my right breast. No one designs clothes for one-breasted women. My granddaughter, Weezie, assured me that I SHOULD get a prosthesis. When I said, "No, Weezie, they’re hot, it would fall out, the dog might chew it up", she nodded and said, "I really NEED you to get one so I can take it to show and tell."

I don't know if I've learned the lessons my friends thought I would learn from cancer, but I have learned other things. I’ve realized it’s not possible to lose something without getting something back. Not the same thing, certainly, not what you’ve lost, but something else. My hair could come in RED - it didn't. I learned that it is rather luxurious to scrub my bald scalp with a washrag. (This is a secret men have been closely guarding.) One day, I looked down, and thought Whoa, look at this. Anything that happens to miss my mouth has a straight shot to the floor. All those years I wondered why there were more crumbs under Harry’s chair than mine, now, I think I know.

Perhaps it wasn't even genetically possible for me to be a grandmother who could offer a grand teton of bosom to my grandchildren. But there are other shelves to nestle on, like this one, the shelf of story. And always, every day, toffee apple!

 

Nancys Christmas letter from 2000, saying some of the same things as above and also some others....:-

Winter Solstice 2000 - Omaha, NE

At Omaha Airport three years later

WOW, what a year!  I never dreamed I'd run into such a stream of events, nor that I'd survive them, and yet here I am, writing you a letter.  Last year at Xmas we were all in Georgia welcoming Graham Garner, Lucy's fiancé, from Croydon, England.  My baby brother, Tom Kimmel,  has built a magnificent cabin up on stilts on Prince Mtn., near Cherry Log, GA, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and we snoozed, hiked in the national forest, ate and talked, laughed and played Fictionary to our heart's desires. 

Just the Little Cabin on Prince Mountain

I came home to the sad news that my big show, Always/Never Coming Home , was not going to be booked into the Lied Center in Lincoln for its run in April "because the Center had lost too much money on a big show and had to use the space for money makers."  

I was busy working, getting ready to walk into the busiest April ever, when on March 10th I discovered a big lump in my right breast.  It was hard as a rock & felt like a pencil hiding under the skin.  I got up and looked at it in the mirror and from the hardness and the dimpling, well, it had to be cancer.  All was confirmed six days later following a biopsy and then scheduled for surgery on March 21st.   

I am sure that some of you have been through this, but for those who have not, I want to say that the mixture of terror and curiosity were profound.  I fired God several times that first weekend and hired her back.  Then I proceeded to hire all the thousands of minor gods, the goddess of eyelashes, the god of wonderful beds, the elf of laughter, the spirit of hand-holding, the nymph of zinnias. 

Peggy decorated my lawn the night before my operation, and when I walked out of the house to go to the hospital, there were 60 vibrantly colored pinwheels spinning their hearts away in the violet beds. 

 

Surgery was quick, extreme, one whole breast disappeared into a now thin and rather dainty scar along with eleven lymph nodes, two of them containing infiltrating ductal carcinoma.  But after ten days of recovery, I drove off to Lincoln and did seventeen school shows in one week. 

I don't think they were my best ever storytelling; I know they weren't, but I did learn a lot about telling that week, and how to lean back into myself and listen to the audience.

I was telling the story of Tushi and said, "This wedding present was the best of all.  What do you think it was?"  A little second grader immediately thrust her hand into the air and sat patiently, absolutely secure in her knowledge of the right answer.  When I finally called on her and she exclaimed, "It was a KITTY!", and I asked her how she knew, she said, "Because that's exactly what I'd like to have."

 

I had three festivals booked for the spring: one in KC at the end of April (I made it!), one in Beatrice 7 days after my first chemo treatment (I made it with help from Lucy and JoAnne Ollerenshaw), and one in Sioux Falls, SD, after my hair fell out (I made it with help from Barnaby, who came from Idaho to be my handler.) 

I remember Harry sitting on the sofa in the living room after his chemo treatments, grey, in pain, saying, "Chemo is HELL." And he is right.  I have nothing good to say about it except that it seems to make it possible for me to go on living. 

Harry

There were days when I could do little more than lie on the sofa and groan, and I was grateful that no one was around to hear me.  Soup appeared on my doorstep regularly, wonderful soups, one named "The Garden Path," and backrubbers, drive-givers, prayer sayers, hand-holders, bakers, gardeners galore who weeded and chopped and shaped, typists who entered registrations for the Festival, and sweet, sweet phone calls from family & friends I found again, anew. 

 

My hair fell out and hit the bottom of the shower, so I dried myself off, got the camera, arranged the hair in the words that show up in this letter, and took their pictures.

Beatrice and Weezie, though, did not like my new bald self.  Weezie teared up: "You don't look like Baba Yaga anymore."  They both insisted I wear my hat when out with them in public.  They came to pick me up for lunch one day and Weezie said, "Maga, put on your hat." I rebelled against this tyranny:  "Weezie, what if, God forbid, you managed to get a really bad haircut and went to school with it, and one of your supposed friends said, 'Louise, you look stupid' How would you feel?"  Weezie shrugged, smiled, stared.  Her Mama, Jenny, said, "Louise, what's on the outside doesn't really count. What if, when you Dad proposed to me, I had said 'Guy, you are the loveliest person I know and I can't imagine being married to anyone but you, but you are too short." Weezie shrugged, looked at the table, smiled, looked up at me and said, "Maga, put on your hat."  Now that about a half inch of hair has softly arrived, they pat me as though I were their new puppy. 

 

Chemotherapy was completed in September; actually, stopped.  I found the Taxol regime too hard and didn't take the last one.  "Hmmm," said my oncologist, "all the studies are done on eight treatments; none on seven.  I suppose 7/8ths of a cup is as good as a full one. 

Send me a letter in 20 years that you are still alive and we'll know it worked." 

I went off to NY in October to see Lucy, who came up from Philadelphia, stayed with Roslyn Perry in her wonderful apartment on W. 24th St., saw Copenhagen and got to have suppers with my niece and friends. 

I also went to see Dr. Wong in Chinatown, who sent me home with tons of little bags of herbs to brew up and drink twice a day.  "We going to build up your Chi, Nancy, your power!"  It seems to be working. 

I'm also taking classic Yoga and loving the centering, the stretching, the clarity of focus.  I'm feeling very well, too well, in fact, for I find myself slipping back into the momentum of my life pre-cancer, and I don't want to go there.  I meet women daily who want their cancer to be over so they can get back to life as it was, to being normal. I hope not. I don't want to have just looked down the road I saw when I was sick with cancer.  I want to turn the corner and walk all the way to the end. 

 

Hail to the gods of ordinary things. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tributes to Nancy Duncan.

 Tributes to Nancy Duncan

                                      

Nancy Duncan died on September 6, 2004 after a long battle with cancer. She was artistic director of Nebraska StoryArts, which she founded and nurtured into a year-round storytelling organization.

A nationally renowned storyteller and educator herself, Nancy was the driving force behind the growth of storytelling in this state. In the Omaha area alone, we have the Nebraska Storytelling Festival, Liar’s Contest, Spooky Stories, Story Connect, a coaching workshop and now the Moonshell Festival because she gave 600-plus hours of volunteer time every year.

Across the state, she helped organize the Kearney Storytelling Festival and the Buffalo Commons Festival in McCook, both of which are strong and vibrant celebrations of the oral tradition.

Her spirit and humor never waned and she continued to touch people’s lives until the end. Her spirit lives on for many of us who knew her for a brief time or for many years.

Here are tributes to Nancy Duncan written by her friends in the storytelling world and published in the Winter 2005 issue of Healing Story Newsletter.

My Friend Nancy Duncan By - Roslyn Bresnick-Perry

Nancy Duncan was my friend, and I truly loved her.

I met her at a Jewish storytelling evening during the Santa Fe National Storytelling Conference about nineteen years ago. She was looking for a Jewish teller for the Nebraska Storytelling Festival.

When first introduced to her, I saw a tall, curly-haired women with large smiling eyes, a rather prominent nose and chin, broad shoulders and an easy manner. “You’re not Jewish, are you?” I asked.

She laughed that famous cackle of hers. “Are Gentiles not allowed?”

“God forbid,” I answered. “But you look like an Englishwoman who loves to ride horses.”

“You mean a horsewoman,” she said, and she started to laugh so hard she had all of us laughing with her. “You’re a cheeky one,” she continued. “No one ever described me in that manner before. And the stories you told match your personality.”

“It’s called chutzpah,” I answered, and at that very moment, we both knew we were going to be friends forever.

Over the years our friendship grew, and we not only met and roomed together at storytelling conferences and festivals, but visited each other’s homes, as well.

“Nancy,” I would say, “when will I be telling at your Nebraska Storytelling Festival?” “You will be,” she would answer. “I’ve got to get the right mix.”

“But Nancy, I’m your friend!”

“I know,” she would laughingly answer. “So what?”

“You better invite me before I die—you know I’m not a youngster anymore.” “Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll outlive me.”

I was at last invited to her festival. It was wonderful, but she was so busy, I hardly saw her. I promised I would come to visit when she had more time.

But when did Nancy have more time? It is hard for me to look at her many achievements—storyteller, educator, promoter of festivals, director, actor, artistic director of a children’s theater, social activist, mother, grandmother—without remembering her Weltanschauung, her world view, her attitude toward people, her joy of life, her deep commitment to what she believed could help heal a sick world.

“One at a time,” she would say, “we should listen to each other, hear each other’s stories, tell the stories, and tell them in a way that make people listen.” She felt keenly responsible for making this happen and took that role, a weighty assignment, very seriously. And yet she was one of the most fun- loving people I have ever known.

For her work and commitment, Nancy was awarded the National Storytelling Network’s Leadership Award. One day, she called me on the phone with real concern. What kind of dress should she wear to the ceremony? Knowing I was a fashion designer in my other life, she felt I had the answer without seeing her wardrobe.

“I don’t know what kind of dresses you own, but it should be something elegant.”

Nancy thought a while. “Okay, I know what I can do.” She brought three dresses with her to the conference. We chose the most elegant, and she looked like a queen onstage. After being presented with the award, she smiled, turned around, bent over, and then turned back to the audience, with her all-embracing chicken head on her head and shoulders. Then she flapped her arms in a very chicken-y manner and let out a buukk, buukk, buukk. The entire audience broke up; no one could stop laughing. Nancy’s favorite costume had to be part of the ceremonies.

It was not long after that conference that Nancy discovered she had cancer. We were all horrified. I called her up in tears, but she answered the phone with laughter in her voice.

“Oh Rozzy,” she said, “I’m so glad you called. “I was going to call you later today, but I got so busy.” “What’s going on, and what the hell are you laughing about?” I asked. “I hear lots of goings-on in your

house.” page

“Well, you see,” Nancy said, “I’m going to the hospital tomorrow, and I’m going to lose my breast. So I thought I should make a mold of my breast. Then I got the idea of making chocolate breasts for all my friends and mailing them for Christmas. Do you want one?”

“You are one crazy lady,” I said, starting to laugh myself. “I’ll only take one if it has a nipple.”

“Wonderful,” she said. “I’ll put one on for you right away.”

After her chemotherapy, Nancy, her daughter Lucy and I did a workshop at the next conference, called “I Cried So Hard I Laughed.” It was Nancy’s idea to do a workshop on loss and dying. With her bald head, she spoke about losing her breast and her hair, and told her story about her breasts saying good-bye to one another. Then she told another story about her hair falling out in the shower, forming into the word Help! She ended with an appeal to women to become more aggressive in demanding more research. The response from the audience was unbelievable.

Things did not go well. The cancer metastasized into the other breast and the liver. Whenever she had a day of relief, Nancy worked. But she became weaker and weaker, and the telephone conversations between us almost stopped. Her three children, Lucy, Guy and Barnaby, kept us all apprised of her condition. We, the friends who loved her, are indebted to them for their loving and healing correspondence.

Finally, Nancy and her family decided she should enter a hospice. One afternoon I received a call from her. She sounded almost like her old self.

“Rozzy,” she said, “Do you believe in reincarnation?” Me “I don’t think so; why do you ask?”

“Well if you do, you’ll be able to find me in a river, because I’m coming back as a river otter.”

“A river otter—how gross! They’re so slimy.”

“No,” she said, “they have wonderfully smooth skins, and they build up the riverbanks, and then they slide down them, laughing this funny laugh.”

And Nancy started to mimic their laughter.

“Okay,” I said, “if you come back as a river otter, I’ll believe in reincarnation and I’ll find you.”

We both laughed.

“Rozzy,” Nancy said again. “Why do you think so many people love me?”

“Because you don’t judge people, and you laugh a lot.”

“That’s why I love you too,” she said. And we hung up.

Several days later, Nancy passed away peacefully. Storytelling has given me many gifts. But nothing compares with the gift of the wonderful storytellers I have met on the way. They are all stars, but Nancy was one of the brightest. Though she is gone, her light is still with me. I think of her many times throughout the day, when I need a question answered or a good laugh.

The last dream I had of Nancy told me in no uncertain terms the role she has played in my life. I dreamed I was in a wonderfully spacious garden. The colors of everything around me were almost blinding. I noticed that not too far away there was a group of people. They had their backs to me, but I was astounded at how beautiful they looked. They were dressed in the most magnificent hooded robes of delicate white wool.

Since I still had the eyes of a fashion designer, I walked over to them quietly, so they wouldn’t hear me, to touch the fabric. Getting closer, I saw that the hoods and sleeves were lined in a glorious white satin that glowed in the sun. As I stood there, enchanted by the sight, one of the figures turned to me. It was Nancy!

“What are you doing here,” she asked with a smile. “It’s not your time.” “But I want to go with you.”

“You can’t; you still have things to do.”

“But how will I find you—there are so many rivers, and otters are not so big.”

“Just listen for my laugh.” Nancy started to leave with the others, then turned back to me and handed me a lovely white woolen pouch that matched her robe.

“Here,” she said, “This is a gift for you. But when you leave, you must give it to someone who will not use it for themselves.” Then she turned back to the others, and they all disappeared.

I just stood there, not knowing what to do. At last I decided to open the pouch. In it were cylinders of gold. I wondered, to whom can I give this when I leave? I was so troubled by the thought that I woke up. It was still dark in my bedroom. I lay awake, remembering the dream. And I thought, who would I give this valuable gift to? And isn’t it strange that Nancy should give me gold?

Then I realized that what Nancy had given me was not gold, but stories. And I knew what I should do.

Roslyn Bresnick-Perry is a nationally known storyteller, author, translator, teacher, prize winning recording artist and \ keynote speaker. She makes visible to audiences the stories of what it means to be Jewish in our modern world.

Memories of Nancy Duncan By Gail Rosen

I met Nancy when she was grieving. It hadn’t been long since her husband Harry had died when she came to my workshop on storytelling and bereavement at the 1998 NSN Conference. Though open about her loss, no one smiled as easily or laughed as infectiously as Nancy. The next day she invited me to present at a conference in Kearney, Nebraska, in 1999. I didn’t know her at all at the beginning of the trip, but by the end I was in awe of her humor, her talent and her generosity. I knew I had been embraced by her warmth, her openness and her graciousness. She worked tirelessly for storytelling and creating venues for storytellers. And her own telling was smart and rich and funny and deeply meaningful.

Living in Baltimore, I didn’t see her often - just at the national conferences each July. We only spoke a couple of times a year, but always with the feeling of deep friendship and easy intimacy. I believe our relationship was not unique for her. She seemed to appreciate and offer that delicious humor and straightforward emotional connection to so many people.

A number of us were blessed by her emails, full of inspiration, passion for justice, love of storytelling, poetry and fun. I wish I had saved them all. I found her first letter to me about her breast cancer in my “stories” file. Here’s part of what it said:

“I tried to talk one of the surgeons into substituting a mini face-lift in place of breast reconstruction (which I’m not planning to do), but TARNATION! I don’t think I’ll even get an extra mole removed as a side- benefit in this process. Have to admit I did spend a sort of soggy weekend March 11-12. I planned my own funeral about four times, then planned the funerals of about six people who I think should die before I do, and then just got bored with all that planning so I read Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey (sweet novel). Took some photos of my right breast and wondered if, when they take it off, I could save the skin and stuff it as a future installation piece in some storytelling production. You never know when you might need an old body part. I’ve been recycling for the past 15 years and don’t know why I should quit now. I should cast it before Tuesday so I could make replicas or sculptures - I’m thinking, it would be nice in chocolate.”

Throughout her illness, she kept us all up to date on her treatment and condition, with posts filled with her particular intelligence and biting wit. She knew we wanted to know, and that we cared. She also worried that she would cause us worry. She said in one post, “If you’d like to be removed from these mailings about my medical adventures, I can fully understand. Knowledge is not always a blessing. The most difficult part of this story, for me so far, is the pain I am causing my loved ones. So let me know if you DO NOT WANT TO STAY POSTED.”

In the Spring of 2003, Nancy told me that she was finally getting some national recognition and reputation for her storytelling, but people were afraid to hire her for festivals a year in advance. “They’re afraid I might be dead,” she said. “But they could be dead too!” So the Healing Story Alliance executive committee decided to ask her to present at our 2004 preconference. She was delighted, and designated Cynthia Changaris to present if she couldn’t. It was only a few weeks before the conference, when she gave up the hope that she could be well enough to come. I shifted some of my travel plans about two weeks before the conference, and went to see her for just two days. Even though she was thin and so tired, she was full of feisty banter and generous listening. I heard her on the phone, still caring for her friends, saying, “I loved you the first time I met you and I still do.” She insisted that I go through her closet and try on clothes that I might wear, clothes that now embrace me in her memory.

We both knew it would be the last time I would see her, but I couldn’t bring myself to really say goodbye. I still don’t want to. So I won’t. Instead I’ll try to keep her living memory present, to listen to her voice on her story recordings, to read some of the emails I saved, to talk of her with friends who knew her and to “introduce” her to friends who never met her. I’ll try to take in a little more of her enthusiasm, generosity, wit and grace, to make it part of myself. I am so very grateful to have known Nancy and to remember her.

Gail Rosen founded the Healing Story Alliance and served as the first chair.

Rosen works with Hospice and end of life care through storytelling.

Thinking about Nancy: a prose poem

Nancy and her daughter were telling a story.

-A thick haired beauty and her baldheaded mother - a sort of canny glory unfolded on a wide lipped stage.

It was a room disguised for conference but arranged for corporate blunder.

But, through their story silence thundered, interrupted only by laughter.

Language and pauses, riding on heartbeat were minced with sorrow like an onion thinly sliced and unseen.

It entranced us, made us whole. they talked about cancer survival, connection, and union. made us victorious

banished fear

teaching, making friends with death to create a ceaseless reunion.

It is no surprise that Nancy’s death was shared and our hearts pried open. She unrelentingly never stopped in the middle;

never stopped even at the end,

She reminded us of all our soul’s transcendence and of friendship not forgotten.

In this trusting, she remains.

(Laura Simms, September 7, 2004)

Laura Simms serves on the Advisory Committee of the Healing Story Alliance.

Simms storytelling includes working with survivors of 9/11 in New York City, where she lives.

“I’ll continue dreaming of our dance together.”

Remembering Nancy Duncan by Allison Cox

I have 106 E-mails in my inbox that I just cannot bring myself to erase. They are all from Nancy Duncan. Most of these missives urge me to learn about more ways I can change the world, Nancy nudging me into action… “now they are targeting Medicare—just as they have targeted overtime pay and good jobs”... “8 percent of the US population have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood and the hardest hit are new-born infants”… “buy breast cancer stamps and send out the word”… “there is a Constitutional Amendment being proposed that will ultimately ban homosexual marriages/civil unions and possibly domestic partner benefits in the future”… “the UN is gathering signatures in an effort to avoid a tragic world event”...

I have to admit that there were times that I felt too tired to read the latest news item Nancy sent. Some days I would think, “today I need a break from all this.” Now I regret that I ever deleted any of these, because after just going through the ones I kept I find such gifts of hope and life. Most encourage working toward peace. Perhaps it is a story of why the Dalai Lama did not fight against the Chinese army - “Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back... but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.” Sometimes she sent questions

- “Aren’t Allah, God and Jehovah, after all, three names for the same divinity?” And she shared true stories, such as a friend’s first flight after 9/11 and how the pilot and stewardess invited them all to protect and care for each other during their flight - “It was a day that everyone leaned on each other and together everyone was stronger than any one person alone. It was quite an experience.”

And there are broadcast letters that Nancy sent out to so many who loved her and wanted to know how she was coping and wishing that we could be there to see her, rub her feet and tell her jokes back for every silly one she sent us. In these, Nancy was utterly honest about her struggle, her hopes, her race against time and her love of being alive. Here is a nugget of a story from a friend that Nancy sent out that tells a lot about how she faced life:

Milarepa, a Buddhist mediator and poet, had been meditating in his cave for many years. He was hungry so he decided to go out and pick up a few sticks so he could build a simple fire and cook a bit of soup for himself. When he came back, he found that a bunch of demons had moved into his cave. He started cursing and throwing sticks at them, but they just laughed at him and made fun of him. Realizing he wasn’t getting anywhere with his angry approach, he decided to try another method. He went in his cave, started to build a fire, welcomed the demons as guests, and asked them to sit down and stick around for a bit of hot soup. All the demons immediately left.

So it is with our fears. When fears come up in our minds, welcome them. Let them know they must be tired from their long journey to find us. Ask them to get comfortable and offer them a bit of soup. We are not going to get rid of our fears. We can’t drive them out with sticks and stones. So we are encouraged to make friends with them. Nancy adds a note at the end: “one way to make friends is to tell stories but those fears. Get them to laugh at themselves.”

While I never got to see Nancy’s chicken stories in person or watch her tell her coyote tales, I am forever grateful that I was treated to a brief rendition of the Pocket People. While sitting in her car one day, she told it to me with her hands dancing across her face as the main characters, mooshing her nose and ears impossibly about and telling the whole tale with sounds but no words at all. If the car door hadn’t been closed, I would have fallen out from hysterical laughter. She was that good.

But perhaps my favorite story of Nancy’s was told to me in little pieces here and there, as she showed around me the Nebraska that she loved. One windy afternoon we stood out on a bridge over the river, watching migrating birds circle overhead as Nancy told me of her husband Harry, her children and grandchildren...

I still see her there as I write this, the wind blowing her brown hair in all directions. Perhaps this is why this poem, among so many others that she sent, is my favorite.

“A poem of motherhood from THE UNSWEPT ROOM by Sharon Olds.”

Sleep Suite

To end up in an old hotel suite

with one’s nearly-grown children, who are sleeping, is a kind of Eden. The one in the second bed

rests her head on two pillows - I did not know that - as she sleeps. The one on the couch, under candlewick chenille, has here and there as he turns

the stuffed animal his sister just gave him

for his twentieth birthday. I roam in the half- dark, getting ready for bed, I stalk

my happiness. I’m like someone from the past allowed to come back, I am with our darlings, they are dreaming, safe. Perhaps it’s especially like Eden since this is my native coast,

it smells something like my earliest life, fog, plumeria, eucalyptus, it is

broken, the killership of my family-

it is stopped within me, the complex gear

that translated its motion. When I turn out the light and lie down, I feel as if I’m at the apex

of a triangle, and then, with a Copernican swerve, I feel that the apex is my daughter,

and then my son, I am that background figure, that source figure, the mother. We are not,

strictly speaking, mortal. We cast beloveds into the future. I fall asleep, gently living forever

in the room with our son and daughter.

Nancy once sent me this quote from Barbara Kingsolver, “…every life that ends is utterly its own event— and also in some way it’s the same as all others, a light going out that ached to burn longer. Even if you never had the chance to love the light that’s gone, you miss it. You should. You bear this world and everything that’s wrong with it by holding life still precious, each time, and starting over.” This quote could hold such unutterable sadness in it for me if it weren’t for another story Nancy also sent me. An elder was going to a nursing home after her husband died and as she was being taken to see her new room for the first time, the old woman said, “I already know that I will love it. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it.”

It is exactly this spirit that lives and breathes throughout these e-mails that keeps me from deleting them. And so I have them here to revisit again and again, to cherish her words that inspire me to try to help out somehow, somewhere, again and again and again. And to remember our dear friend.

Seems only right that Nancy should have the last word here...

“Keep me in your prayers and meditations. Hold me in the light. And I’ll continue dreaming of our dance together. May Peace Prevail on Earth. Nancy K. Duncan.

Allison Cox combines her love of story with her training as a therapist, social worker, health educator and prevention specialist. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Healing Story Alliance and the editor of The Healing Heart books.

Nancy Duncan as Baba Yaga and a very big chicken.

“We moved forward because you must, to live forwards, which is away from whatever it was that you had, though you think while you have it, that it will stay forever.”

Harry and Nancy Duncan in their 1995 Christmas letter