Gone but not forgotten

So… it occurred to me over the weekend that I haven’t seen my dragon in a while. I think she went off sometime after the last time I saw the oncologist. She didn’t make a big fuss about it, she just vanished.
My dragon was terrific. When I was tired, she perched on the bed post, very small, and looked after me. When the world was too much, she grew and cocooned me behind her scaly wings. When I needed to stick up for myself, she gave me a little poke with a claw. When I wasn’t treated as well as I should have been by hospital staff, I could smell the sulphur drifting through the air, a warning to them. When I was distraught and ill, she sat close by, reminding me that sometimes sitting with things is all that you can do. It was as though, with my friend Margi, she was telling me, “this too shall pass”. And when things were good, she wheeled in the air far overhead, keeping an eye and an ear cocked in my direction.
When the dragon first showed up and I started to write about her, I was a bit concerned that my readers might think that the chemotherapy was eating up more than my hair and my immune system, and getting into my brain. How wrong I was. Some of you recognised the dragon from your own experiences: many of you saw her so clearly that you could tell me how she looked and what colour she was (lilac with pink accents seemed to be the consensus, although she was more of a vivid vermilion to me). Everyone could see her value.
And now my dragon has gone. I’m sure she’s off supporting someone else who is dancing this terrible dance with cancer. I guess she knows I don’t need her any more, which is a good thing, really.
I’ll kind of miss her, though. If you see her, tell her thanks from me.