LIFE WITH A CAPITAL 'L' - Chapter FIVE, CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION – Chapter FIVE
In November of 1988 I began writing a specific journal about my friend Linda. The first entry I made was a slightly altered quote form the book by William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow.It seemed to describe her new task perfectly, “Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn’t be crossed, a door that shouldn’t have been gone through, a place she hadn’t meant to leave.” Then, I began writing about her. The place she didn’t mean to be was on an operating table. One of the earliest pages of what stacked to a hundred said,
“The surgeon has opened her form sternum to pubic bone, examined, cut, joined, scoured, biopsied, sutured, bound and released her . . . . The oncologist is now the man to probe, examine, deliberate, recommend, and treat. Cancer is his business; the project of survival is hers.
Well, she has an advantage. Regardless of what else occupies her, Linda finishes projects; potting plants, gathering nature’s throw-aways and shaping them into magnificent corner pieces for her house, or arranging books on a shelf in such a way that one wishes to stand forever before them. Somehow, the way Lin “places” things makes a person need to be among them . . .as if we hope her deliberateness will penetrate those of us who love her style but don’t know how to make it happen.”
During hospitalization, Linda and I decided to ignore the length or frequency of our calls between California and Colorado, a wise decision. I wrote in my journal about a call made the day she left the hospital.
“Linda cries in relief, trauma, sadness, fear . . .’I feel so much emotion being back in my home.’ Merlin, the huge cat was stretched across her bed with his tongue hanging out. She said, ‘He looks like I feel.’ She is ready for humor’s relief.
. . . As we work toward a decent time for me to come to Denver, I opted for post-Thanksgiving week. She is recovering wonderfully.
‘If I acted as though I am not doing well, would you come sooner?’ she asked.
I will. Next Monday. My birthday and the holiday will be spent with her.
. . . Linda is drawing in the turning season. Bare trees stroke her emotions; dark skies cushion her bruised mind. The love of her home holds her up to face the unknown.
Wednesday, November 16
And how am I doing, her friend who plans to fly there, who will somehow be an anchor in a fierce storm? I am a very “now” person. Now, I am not crying. That was done last Thursday through Sunday. Now, I wait. I listen. I am trying to hear Linda rightly. I need to hear John and her family and the doctors and friends. I need to learn. I am a student of this crisis, being taught in a language I have only begun to hear. I cannot yet speak it and I probably only understand one out of every ten or fifteen words . . . If I stay long enough and mix well enough with the inhabitants of this country of cancer, maybe I will hear accurately and be able to communicate without so many flailing gestures.
November 23, Wednesday
John dozes in the only chair the small examination room allows. We wait and wait for oncologists. I am perched on a stool snugged at the corners of Lin’s examination table, a large tan colored metal file cabinet, and a blue and white cardboard box Lin says holds chemo “throw-aways.”
In the interminable waiting period I am struck by everyone’s need to escape this place, this appointment, this truth. Lin is greatly agitated, frightened, small-talk-chatty.
Doctors finally arrive, discuss then leave the room and us with basic facts on a three-page consent form. Linda begins to read aloud. She does well for a page and a half then control gives way to tears and heaving sobs as side effects are ticked off: abdominal cramps, numbness or tingling of fingers and toes, temporarily paralyzed bowel, severe abdominal pain can occur . . . nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, increased susceptibility to infections, bruising and bleeding . . . mouth ulcers and temporary hair loss, . . . a small but increased risk of leukemia. Oh, yes. It may also “cause kidney damage.”
‘Why bother with all this,’ Linda asks excruciatingly. ‘The treatment sound worse than the disease. I don’t want this.’ John holds her, I pat her leg, seated on my stool to her left. We are helpless observers. We cannot be her.
Around 6:00pm, under a full harvest moon, we are out of there. Lin and John drive in a car ahead of me. At stoplights I stare at the beautiful, full moon wreathed in a ring of light behind wispy clouds in the black sky. I see my friends silhouetted in their car ahead and cannot believe what we have just experienced. This is a joke, I want to think as a gut-kick connects with my heart and I am awash in sorrow.
That was my birthday. It began at 2:51am, says my journal, when Linda could not sleep, woke me, built a fire, and served me herbal tea (I just cannot learn to like it much). She was swaddled in a dark blue robe, a serape afghan thrown around her shoulders, heavy wool socks, and a knitted ski cap on her head. We laughed at her fashion but bone=deep cold rules her body, and that is not funny. She read to me from her journals about our years of friendship. She cried, we sang a hymn, prayed, and sent her back to bed at about 6:20am.
On this day, about twelve hours later, I signed as the witness to my friend’s decision to enter a cancer research program. On my birthday she hears the odds for saving her life, signs herself to treatment, begins a journey she did not choose. There is a great void between the way things used to be and are now. Fourteen days have passed since surgery, less than that number stand between her and the beginning of chemotherapy.
I could not sleep through that night. I wondered at a day that marks my life’s beginning and marks Lin’s dangerous journey ahead. I woke on Thanksgiving Day at 6:20am wondering how on earth I could possibly be all I ought to be in this most unwelcome process. I was terrified, but the terror brought with it a most important realization. I began to write. My journal records,
Dearest Linda,
I am not God. I cannot be a shield or a fortress. But I promise to be a wall for you against which you can lean for as long as the bricks of this wall hold together.
But I am not God. I wish I were. But, you may lean . . . to the extent of my strength.
Between November 1988 and July 1990, I learned about loaning my life to Linda. I learned about limitations: Mine. I learned about friendship: Ours. I learned about giving whether or not it gets rewarded or whether or not it changes anything. I learned how good it is to surrender freedom, to give without expectations and with no demands. Linda gave, too. Nobly, much of the time. She helped me learn the art of loaning. What a final gift, yes?
COMING UP: Chapter Six – LAUGHING
(please scroll down to leave Comments)
