Madeleine L’Engle’s A WRINKLE IN TIME – Fiftieth Anniversary.

I read Wrinkle for the first time in 2nd or 3rd grade, and have read it at least a dozen times since.  Wrinkle led me into other of Madeleine’s works, including the Arm of the Starfish which I did a book project on in 3rd grade, which included writing a letter to Madeleine (she wrote back, and the brief letter typed and signed on a promotional brochure is one of my prized possessions).  Madeleine’s non-fiction works were a comfort to me in a crisis of faith in college and the years following, but my love for her work led me to creating the BONASTRA email discussion group on her work, through which I would meet my wife.   ~Chris Smith

In 1997, when my husband was 28 and I was 4 months pregnant with our second child, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  As he went through his chemotherapy sessions, lost his hair, started dropping weight, and landed in the hospital with a perforated ulcer, I felt more helpless and more angry each week. 
At that point, I hadn’t read WiT in probably 10 years.  But, while I was being absolutely furious with my lack of control over the situation  (it was the day my husband came home with his chest covered with black sharpie marker that the doctors had drawn to show where to direct the radiation the next morning at his appointment) that something flashed into my memory about IT being glad as Meg got angrier and angrier when she was trying to rescue Charles Wallace.  I dug out my book and skimmed though the 2nd half until I found the scene.  And, I decided that something I could do was to treat that tumor as another IT.  If love was the only thing Meg had that IT didn’t have, then I decided I could attack the tumor the same way.  I tried to think about loving him and searing that #$%@^&% thing at the same time. I didn’t tell my husband about it, because I believed he’d decide that I had gone bonkers from the stress. 
 I don’t know if it actually did my husband any good.  But, the action made me less angry all of the time and also made me feel like I was moving forward rather than just standing still.  And, he’s still here and fine 15 years later.  -Kat