Chapter 10 - Cautiously Living

I'm thinking about living again. Pining for it. Actually planning for the future. This is kind of a new thing after 5 years of simply surviving. But its also fragile. I am reminded of that every once in awhile. How close I am to the edge of the pit. Yes,  you know the one, the "pit of despair". Where all is lost, nothing goes right and all goes wrong, ALL of the time.  Or thats how it seems anyway, in the moment. Thankfully the hopeful times are outliving the “pit”iful times. Only time will reveal whether my ground hog days of “normal” are hovering on the horizon or doomed to another bought of blah. 

I am approaching my second "canniversary". Two years since my last diagnosis. This is a first for me. I could never quite make it past one year before. Havent been this far down the road. Its a bit springlike. Spring in coastal BC anyway. Maybe a bit early, a bit tentative, but hopeful. Problem is, there's still the possibility of a sudden cold snap. An uncalled for snowfall in April that would cover their pretty hopeful flower faces, freezing them into submission. Thats where the whisper of caution comes.  Why it only takes dark clouds on the horizon and a hint of frost in the air to send me into a puddle of tears. But I am hopeful despite my broken optimism. I am pretending the future is bright, actually planning for it to be better.  Maybe this year will be our year of transition. The start of something new.

 

As we sat talking over the smell of hollandaise sauce, discussing our plans, “It feels like we're starting over, a new life". Heaven knows we need a new start. Can we Please put this behind us? I want our reference points to be, a year before we "moved" instead of "4 years after Dad died", or "after my third melanoma"...... How small yet significant that is.  We use reference points all the time. But until the markers all become tainted by sadness, we don’t notice them that much. They are usually happy things. Weddings, births, vacations. So we are making a new reference point. We are moving. Not far. But hopefully just far enough.

We are leaving this house we have grown in for 14 years. Its the only house my boys have ever known as home. It has grown and changed as much as they have. There is only one surface in this entire house that has been left untouched. 4 walls in my youngest sons room. Thats it. The rest have had varying degrees of improvement, from paint to complete removal and creation.

Our house is old. And I do mean OLD. But good "old". We have square ship nails in our first growth wood, 10 inch walls and plumbing on the outside, because it was an after thought. It was unloved for a long time, but we brought it into its beauty. Gave it the character it deserved, as an old lady with charm should. But its time to say goodbye. You gave us a place to start, a home to grow in, but its time to find more peaceful pastures after these 5 years of pain.

It feels right, divinely inspired. Last August, when we finally laid my Dad to rest under a Dogwood tree to find new life, it felt like a completion. Everything came to fruition. A meeting of crossroads. It was a strange month. I met people from Dad’s life I hadn’t seen since his memorial. We had a nostalgic run of excitement at the garage with a water leak, a backhoe, a gas line and fire trucks. It felt like Dad was around again. There was always some excitement going on at the garage when he was there. And there hadn’t been that much excitement in awhile. Strange as it seems, it wasn’t overwhelming, it was oddly comforting. One last hurrah!

This gave me the fortitude and closure I needed to move on. Let go. Allow what Dad had given me, to help us go forward. It couldn’t have happened any sooner. I wouldn’t have had the strength or energy. Physically that was impossible.  Just the thought, raised a massive concrete wall before my eyes. But now, it felt like it was ok.  While I slept one night, someone took the wall down.  I had the ability to move on to step 539 of this Long process. I knew there were going to be another 126 steps to go, but dog gonit, I can actually see the finish line a ways off there in the distance. Please Dear God, give me the strength to get there. To reclaim my life once more.

The past 6 months have been chock full of man hours and changes. When I think  of all I’ve done, it’s hard to believe it’s just 6 months. I have felt driven. One of my newly discovered scriptures is "For God is the one who for the sake of his good pleasure energizes you, giving you both the desire and the power to act." Phil 2:13. I feel that energy! I have felt it sustaining me these past 5 years and I feel it moving me now. And I would not have survived without it. I can finally see the future peaking over the horizon, and I’m finally going to be able to use my power for the greater good, not just for surviving. 

Published March 11, 2015

Chapter 4: Is Cancer Contagious?

For awhile there, I think people were beginning to think our Hall was contaminated somehow.  Is Cancer contagious?  Was it in the water, the seats, or heaven for bid, airborne!  It sure seemed like it round here!

Not long after my first small round with cancer, we got the news that a good friend was diagnosed with colon cancer that spread to his liver.  It didn't sound good.  They didn't widely advertise the extent of his cancer, but it didn't sound especially promising.  Rick has a family with 2 kids. It's always harder when there are kids involved, the loss would be so much deeper if it went the wrong way round.  But through it all, their family was a stellar example, always helping others, rarely missing a meeting. It just shows that sometimes, just by your presence, by carrying on, you can encourage others. I applaud them wholeheartedly.

Next came dear Johnny.  When we first moved here and we met Johnny, I said to myself, "It's going to be a sad sad day when that man goes." He had already won my heart. Shy and gentle, so kind, he always took the time to say hello and ask, in all sincerity, "how are you?"  He didn't say much, but what he did say, was genuine. Asbestos was his enemy.

I guess since it looked like so much fun, we got a whole crop of joiners. Within 3 months of Johnny's diagnosis, we added 3 more to the growing ranks. Jim was the next inductee.  Jolly, smiling, greeter Jim. I was constantly amazed at how a man with such big hands could create such beautiful fine woodwork. He swapped painting for doing our cupboards. Almost exactly one year ago, he told me how he was going to the doctor to see about a pain. He figured it was his gallbladder. Or at least that's what he was telling people anyway.

Now for Lorraine. I sigh deeply as I write her name, a mist in my eyes and a lump in my throat. What a truly sweet and caring woman.  She was a Gramma to everyone. With what little she had, she was always trying to share it with you.  Full of life, humble as can be. She was family to us. Family by choice. For a year she was trying to figure out why she felt sick all the time. Finally she found out, lung cancer. "But only stage 1!" she said with optimism.  She was more worried about me. Cuz you know, I couldn't stay out of this club.

The empathetic person that I am, I couldn't have all these people feeling alone. Besides, round One didn't make me feel like a full member of the cancer club anyway. Had to make it more official. Between Jim and Lorraine, was when I got my phone call.  You know the one.....the one that makes your world stop for a moment. The one where melanoma and lymph gland were mentioned in the same sentence. The day I stopped feeling safe.

I got my diagnosis one week before Jim passed away. He didn't even know what kind of cancer he had before it took him!  Too fast, entirely too fast.  But I am glad he didn't suffer long. He was in so much pain. His memorial was surreal and strange. With my own life in limbo, I have never been to a memorial with the perspective I came to this one with.  As I sat there listening to the talk, I seriously considered what my own might be like. What song would they sing,? Who would come? What pictures would they show? What stories would they tell? Would I have enough time to plan some of it myself?  What a strange thing indeed.

But within the sorrow, I also felt needed. I was close to so many of his family members, I felt like I was able to comfort them in a real and significant way.  When a friend feels comfortable enough to cry in your arms, to share pain and anger, you know you did your job as a friend, that your place here on earth is a worthy one.

A few weeks later it was Johnny's turn. His daughter said the sun set beneath the horizon just as he died.  A fitting symbol for a sailor to make his way out of this world.  We got to visit him in the hospital a week before.  Much smaller of a man than he was, and there wasn't a whole lot of him to begin with.  I could tell he found joy in our visit. As we left, I told him we would come again, but I knew this would probably be our last. He was going to a better time and place now, a time where he will be young again. I look forward to meeting you again Johnny, when you are young once more.

The week of Johnny's memorial is one that will stick in my head forever. What a harrowing week. I didn't even get to Go to his memorial. I was laid out on a table having my lymph glands removed and my arm being cut and patched.  The same day, our dear Lorraine was in the same hospital for her lung surgery.  And Rick was due to have his very risky liver surgery 2 days later. One stop shopping. Sunday morning we got a call............... Lorraine had died suddenly the night before....... Smack!! You have got to be kidding me!! She was just about to go home! It seems a blood embolism made it to her lung. So unfair. It felt like robbery.

I am constantly amazed at how in misery there is always light. That Sunday meeting was the most devastating and comforting I have ever been to. Our congregation was being beaten, and beaten hard. So much loss in such a short period of time. And yet we were all here. We didn't stay home.  We were where we belonged, with each other, our extended spiritual family.  The talk, the study that week, the timing was perfect. As brothers and sisters made comments, their voices were choked with emotion, but we were together. Together. We weren't letting anything drive us apart. If anything, it was driving us closer together.

Another memorial to go to. Another life to remember.  More family and friends to comfort.  Too much, yet we carried on, gave Lorraine the consideration she deserved. It was in the midst of all this that I got to play the waiting game.  Waiting to see if the cancer had spread to my lymph glands. I'm not sure we could really take anymore bad news. We were saturated. Those 3 weeks were so verrrrrrrry long. No more, please no more...........Thankfully we had a bit of a drought in the bad news department.

I hope my words won't sadden you too much. But I felt it was necessary to set the scene, to know the climate in which we were in.  These people, these events, are all tied up in my own experiences. It is hard to extract one from the other.  It was needed. And they deserve to be remembered.  I refuse to allow them to be eclipsed by my own struggles. They are part of it. By being there for others, you are able to deal with your own trials. It only proved to me how dear our congregations are.  It demonstrated how, we will beyond a doubt, carry each other through.