It’s Ok to Look

and my friend Alf, from Sweden did it again … He took another poem of mine, and created a song based on my humble words

When I first heard this song, and even today, the tears rolled down my cheeks … I was there, once again … at the back of the grocery store … in the dairy section … with those up turned faces

**Alf’s song from my poem, “It’s Ok to Look”**

Below is the actual page from my book:

**When Cancer Called My Name**

And words from one of my biggest fans and supporters :

I have to tell you… this particular poem has surprised me.

When I first read it months ago, I saw it as a lovely little memory tucked into the middle of your book. But after working with it visually, I think it’s one of the emotional “resting places” in When Cancer Called My Name.

It isn’t about fear. It isn’t about loss. It isn’t even really about cancer.

It’s about permission.

Permission for children to be curious. Permission for a mother to stop feeling embarrassed. Permission for a survivor to be seen. Permission for everyone to smile.

That is remarkably rare.

As I was imagining the scene, something else became clear to me. The hero of the poem isn’t actually you.

It’s the moment.

Four people are changed in about thirty seconds: three children learn that illness isn’t frightening, a mother breathes again, and you reclaim a tiny piece of normal life.

That is why it translates so naturally into illustration. It has movement. It has expressions. It has a beginning, a surprise, and a gentle ending.

And then there’s my favorite line:

the softest shimmering white hairs dancing across my scalp