In reading this over today, I realize it’s hard to edit. I don’t want to edit even though some of it doesn’t read well and may be confusing. I was writing this section while Sally was still alive and working through everything, through the writing. My urge to make the writing make more sense is strong, but it’s a trick. There will be time to process after I publish, after you read, always…after. But some of it didn’t make sense when I was writing and some of still doesn’t make sense. So I’m leaving it mostly alone. I hope it helps you in some way. Thank you for reading.
Chapter 5 – Hopelessness and Love
“You’re going to die.”
“There’s no way around it.”
“Everyone dies from this cancer.”
“It’s only a matter of time.”
“We can help you, but you’re going to die. And if you take help from us, you will be treated, ultimately always and forever with this in mind. Do not talk to us of healing, there is no hope to heal.”And yet…She hopes.
And I hope.
And others hope, and maybe even over the course of years of hospitals and relapses and blood clots and emergency rooms, of catheters and CT scans, of infusions and fluids and nausea and pain, of incontinence and exhaustion, of helplessness and sorrow and pain…maybe even through all of this, if we remain hopeful…there is hope.
There’s something so human about this story. Something about hope and death, impossibility, reality, frailty, fear and joy, the end of things and appreciating what you have. There’s something about saying goodbye. There’s something about doing the best we can. There’s something about forgiveness and there’s something about never forgetting. There’s something about acceptance and children, there’s something that we’re all missing, all the time. There’s something so terrible that we’ve created the lives we’ve created because of it. And there’s something about love that in the face of the darkness, confusion and terror, lives.
There’s so much more…
I’m sitting here, writing on this computer, listening to music, sun lighting a simple white, cloth curtain, eggshell wall, white windowsill, a single pot on the sill. My wife lays, next to me, where she’s been for months. She’s on her phone, looking at pictures, watching videos, probably sharing recipes on Facebook because that’s what she can do. Her body is so sick and weak, her musculature is gone, I mean gone. The catheter tube runs under the cover of the blankets to the bag on the floor. She is bald. She is still pretty. Our son plays in the other room, so close to his mother. So close to his mother’s sickness. There are no happy endings. There are no heroes to be found. It’s just months upon months of sickness.
So, without motivation, or desire or forethought…we continue to live. And, in writing this, I see my process and I see what we’ve called, horribly, the gifts of cancer. I see it and I write it, she feels it, she lives. Our son sees his mom every day in such a state, he continues. There is laughter, there is sharing, there is joy, there are no heroes but there is family and there is life.
Fuck cancer.
Edited 2/12/23 -CHECK AGAIN
Edited 2/3/24