The Fig Tree
This past spring, I got the gardening bug. I use that term very loosely. As I mentioned in my last blog, I do not have a green thumb. I should say it was more that I got excited about possibilities again. I was feeling good, my energy was high, and I lived under the illusion that this cancer was gone. All was well with the world.
I’ve always wanted to plant a fig tree. I love figs. They are yummy and beautiful. They’re the perfect addition to a lovingly crafted charcuterie or cheese board. They are glorious when added to a simple salad with goat cheese and a light vinaigrette. They pair well with whipped feta and honey drizzle on a cracker. But dang: they’re expensive to buy at the store.
I called my friend Heather Anne. She has two truly fabulous fig trees in her backyard. They’re as tall as her house. She has hundreds of figs every year; our chef friends take many of them (she’s a generous sharer) and use them in their creations.
She gave me the ground rules: full sun, good soil, don’t expect fruit to show up until year 3 or 4. But after that, they take care of themselves.
I went to the nursery, gathered up plants for my front pots, and then headed to the “fruiting trees” section. Varieties of apple trees, pear trees, and peach trees were aplenty. Then I discovered one bare area with teeny little bedraggled fig plants. I looked them over carefully, and none seemed particularly good or healthy. They were overpriced sticks in a plastic pot. But I had the fig-fire in my bones, and I would get this done. Today.
After a quick look over the varieties, the name “Chicago Hardy Fig” caught my eye because, well, I need hardy. Hardy is my jam.
I brought it home with me.
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When I was first diagnosed with Breast Cancer in August of 2020, I began to pray that I’d have another good 40 years this side of heaven. I was 41 at diagnosis, so I basically requested to live a normal, long life. Let this be a glitch, a bump in the road we can put behind us soon enough.
Then in the summer of 2021, we learned that this was Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC), a different animal. On paper, the outcomes are not as good. Recurrence rates are much higher. I started praying for 20 more years. In that case, I’d be 60 or so before this cancer got the best of me.
I want to hold grandbabies; I’d pray. Let me be here for my family. Let me see the next generation. Don’t bring this pain and loss to my children—marked forever by the early death of their mother. Spare Ty this grief. Please give me this. Please give them this.
Then this past January, we learned that the cancer had recurred and had metastasized to my liver. We were told that even on this new chemo, I would be lucky to have two more years.
I had just celebrated my 44th birthday.
People sent me encouraging stories: My mom has been Stage 4 for ten years! My aunt was told she had four years, and that was 15 years ago!
These stories are sweet. I just don’t believe them for myself. This is the 4th or even 5th chemo I’ve been on. Before this, each therapy drug would last for a few months and then… just stop working. Cancer would grow again. Or it would look like it was gone and then show up again. IBC moves very quickly… so there’s not much time to curb it once it rears its head.
The chemotherapy I’m on now seems to be the end of the road for my treatment options. The question is not if this cancer will outsmart the therapy. The question is when. How long do I have?
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I wrote a blog touching on this—the idea of time running out—aptly called Time Runs Out and used this quote from Mitch Albom for the banner:
Man alone chimes the hour. And because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.
Soon after my most recent diagnosis, some leaders from our church gathered to pray with Ty and me. It was a sweet and intimate time for us. After some conversation and a few introductions (we knew most of them already), someone asked for more details on my health update, which I explained. A hush, a heaviness sapped the air from the room.
Tim, a quiet, unassuming middle-aged man with wire spectacles, stood up. He spoke boldly, taking command of the room with this one question:
He turned his eyes to me. Sarah, when are you going to die?
His frankness took me aback. Well, I’d say probably in a year or so, I responded.
Alright. He moved on. Ty, he queried, when are you going to die?
Ty answered: I guess I don’t know—hopefully a long time from now.
That’s right, Tim said. Nobody knows when they are going to die. Sarah, you don’t know. Ty, you don’t know. But God does. He has our days numbered even before we are born. And there’s nothing you can do to change that. He doesn’t just know the number of our days; he ordains it.
He read Psalm 139:16
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
And then Luke 12:25-26
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life span? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
These could seem like empty, perhaps even callous words. They might sound like pat religious speak from a man who doesn’t have cancer but has lived a full life and has many more years to come. But what you don’t know about Tim and his wife, Jackie, is that about a year ago, they lost their young adult son, Nathan, in a fatal car wreck. He was driving home to be with his family but never made it.
Tim and Jackie have had to choose to believe these words. Those verses hit differently now, both for them and for Ty and me as we receive them. God numbers our days: this is not a platitude. This is not a trite truth tossed onto a sad person who needs a few words of encouragement.
No. These words and this truth are born from profound grief and personal loss. This is comfort. This is security. This is an anchor: God alone numbers our days.
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When I brought my baby bundle of fig tree sticks home, I walked all over my yard, looking for the right place to plant. There wasn’t one. The only full sun I get is in my front yard, and this tree could grow huge. Of course, it could also die because it looked so squirrely. So, in typical Sarah Pattison fashion, I threw it in the ground in a partially sunny place. I did nothing to the soil. I dug a hole with a trowel, stuck that bundle of roots in it, and covered it loosely with some topsoil.
Only the next day did I realize it was a pretty shady spot. Just a peek of good morning sun, then shade. This would likely not go well.
As I dug and planted, as I obsessively watered and checked it, I prayed:
Lord, let me see fruit on this tree. That’s 3-4 more years. That’s a big ask right now, I know. But that’s what I’m asking. I want to see figs. I want to see my big girls settled in colleges. I want to watch Eden get through the 4th grade. I want to help our home transition from a 5-person family to a 3-person family, and then I want to help Ty and Eden transition well into a 2-person family. This is possible with you.
About a month ago, I was watering my plants, and something on the little tree caught my eye. I gasped out loud. There was a fig. Sure enough: a fig grew just a few months after I planted this scraggly thing.
The tag was still attached to one of the branches, describing the care and cycle of the Chicago Hardy Fig variety. I bent down to read it closely.
The Chicago Hardy Fig typically fruits within one year.
What is this fresh horror? I can’t imagine anyone being as alarmed as I am to have a thriving plant. As it stands right now, I have a handful of bright green baby figs on this tree and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I sat by the pool with my friend Emily as our girls played, and I shared this story. She looked at me and said with a straight face:
I think I’d pull that thing right outta the ground.
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There are a few touchpoints that have come up repeatedly on this journey. These past three years, there have been little details that bring meaning, purpose, or comfort to me. One of these is the hummingbird.
I wrote a blog called, The Voice Behind You, introducing our hummingbird friend. In short, we have wild, bright orange honeysuckle vines planted along the edge of our patio wall. I love to sit under the vines on my patio loveseat; I look and listen.
I hear birds chirping in the morning and see squirrels jumping playfully from tree to tree. Every once in a while, I’ll see the chipmunks happily running to and from our Hostas. (On a side note, I suspect that the chipmunks have a highly trained team of covert operatives tunneling elaborately under our concrete patio. They are a sleeper cell—undercover as sweet little Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. But don’t let your guard down: they will one day dominate the world and eat all your precious Dahlia bulbs.)
More and more often these days, my hummingbird comes to visit. He will often even rest on a delicate vine while he is still, drawing the nectar out of a honeysuckle blossom. When this happens, I can clearly observe the beauty of his minute details. Sometimes, I hear him before I see him. Often, he is so close to my face that I feel the air coming off of his miniature, lightning-speed wings suspended in the air.
Our backyard is nothing glamorous, but I sit under my vine, and I find comfort.
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I see hummingbird pictures or prints all the time now. It’s remarkable just how many medical facilities have wall art of a hummingbird. Just this morning, I had an endoscopy procedure, and as I sat in the drab, barren little waiting room, I looked up and saw the solitary artwork on the wall across from me: a botanical drawing of a hummingbird.
I wrapped my blanket around myself a little bit tighter and smiled.
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At my recent chemo infusion, the office was running a bit behind. A sharp, well-dressed woman sat beside me, and we began to chat as we passed the time. She is battling a recurrence of Breast Cancer—she was first diagnosed at 40, but she’s been clear for 20 years. Now it’s back again. She showed me a picture of her adorable grandchildren, and I began to cry. I tried to hold tears back, but they just poured. Looking at those sweet faces and hearing her story of 20 years No Evidence of Disease… something came undone in me.
I just wanted to hold grandbabies one day. Now I don’t think I’ll even see my youngest daughter graduate elementary school.
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With all these unexpected figs showing up way too soon for my liking, I did a little search on verses with figs, and I came upon this one, which I have since rooted deeper into my heart. I have lovingly embraced its solace and wept salty tears over the consolation I find in it.
The verse is from Micah, and God is promising his people that after the tumult, after the battles, after the sieges and the insecurities and the horrors of war, there will be peace.
Everyone will sit under their own vine, and their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
Micah 4:4
Because whether your days are short or your days are long, you need not fear. God is good; he is tender, he is never late and never early. He alone knows your number, and he has spoken. It will be so.
I may cry unexpectedly, out of the blue, when grief meets me head-on, which is understandable. At this very moment, I hear Eden singing in the other room, and I don’t see how any of this can be good. But today, I will sit under my honeysuckle vine, and I’ll water my fig tree, trusting that He holds the perfect balance.
