Guilt by association

Dear June,

It was a long long day at the hospital. The good news? We are done with our first round of Chemo (one month down – thirty-five to go!) and Noah for once doesn’t seem to have that God awful spinal headache! The bad news? I do. My head has been killing me… all day. I secretly suspect that its a nefarious plot by the hospital administrators to raise funds by selling over-priced tylenol at the gift shop….I mean come on! $1.95 for two tylenol?  I just can’t begin to describe how unbelievably exhausted I am. Second day in a row I can barely drag myself up the stairs to bed….at 6:55 no less.  I have a lot on my mind lately….Zombies.

I joined this support group online for mothers of children with cancer. There is a lot of good there.. but there is a lot of bad too.  Yesterday someone started one of those “do you live under power lines, did you feed your child hot dogs, did you take medication while you were pregnant” kind of threads.  I didn’t bite…I “refused” to participate….I posted that I didn’t want to waste a moment of my precious life or his speculating about those kinds of things because I thought they were harmful, pointless, and counter-productive. Nice speech right?

Have you ever been home alone at night….watching some innocuous mind-numbing television show, when all of a sudden a commercial for “The Ring 3” or “Zombie Apocalypse” flashes on the screen? Seriously. WTF? You fumble for the remote and almost knock yourself out cold trying to change the station but its honestly already too late…even after the channel has been changed and you’re safely watching infomercials – you can’t pretend that you didn’t see anything….that it never really happened….that it doesn’t really bother you….the damage has been done….and in spite of your very best efforts at denial,  you’ll be thinking about Zombies all night.

Well it was a bit like that.  Even though I looked away – it was too late. The question had been asked. Was it even remotely possible? Was it something I did or didn’t do?  Did I let him eat too much junk food? Did I use the wrong chemical to clean the bathroom? Was it the cigarette I smoked when I was three months pregnant? Was it something in the water? Something in the air? Something? Anything? I’m no stranger to “issues” with guilt…but this is different. This is insidious and real and dark….You see its so hard not to feel somehow to blame when your child is sick with something that could kill him…because at the end of the day….I know that IT’S MY JOB TO KEEP HIM SAFE….and somehow I failed.  And no one is going to convince me otherwise. Not today.

-Cathy

Teenagers

Dear Louise,

It won’t be long before you’re back in Maine! I woke up this morning and the first thought that came to mind was “The goldfinches are back….spring is coming after all….grin…..maybe I should put the kale in today”…which was quickly replaced by “Oh- I forgot. Noah has cancer.”  Normal people have kale…we have chemo.  I have to say, living with cancer in the house feels an awful lot like living with a newborn. I bound out of bed some mornings noisy, unguarded in my enthusiasm and to-dos – before I’m stopped cold a few steps later…. Its almost like someone stage whispers…SHHHHHHH!!!!  Settle down! The cancer is sleeping!  OH, right! I forgot…Sorry!

I try so hard to find the balance between propriety and whimsy. A firm grasp on sanity and a general fuck it.  I feel co-dependant in the extreme…following Noah’s steroid driven mercurial moods like we are one instead of two people living in different bodies.  Sometimes I just stare at him like I could wish his cancer away…..I do wish that. All the time.

Sometimes he’s such an ass. And its a nice break for us both. Then for just a little while, I can put away the “please don’t die” lens and try on the “pick up your room you sloven little beast” one.  I wish that for him too….a normal childhood full of teenage angst and rebellion.  Every child’s due in my book.

Part of me welcomes him token acts of defiance. Me: “take your pills Noah”. Him: “I will…in a while” Me: “nope. take them now” Him: “sure Mom”…..An hour later I come in to find the pills still sitting on the dresser and the whole things starts again. He always takes them…but I panic. You see those little pills keep him alive….and though I want to scream “THIS IS NOT NORMAL — I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO WORK SO HARD AT KEEPING HIM ALIVE”…..part of me knows deep down that all parents feel that way.  Even those without cancer.

Love,

Cathy

Dear Sir

Dear Bette,

I know we had talked about coming to Michigan over spring break but now we’ll have to send our love instead..Not to worry though – it seems we have lots and lots of love to spare these days. It spills out of the cracks of the care packages, the casseroles, the cards and the phone calls…..Who would have thought that cancer could be such a love magnet.  Oh to be well and hated. You must think me terribly ungrateful, but truly I’m not.  Not really.

I have to tell you that I’m struggling more than a little bit with prayer. Remember last year when you told me about your Grandmother and how she would sit with you each night for evening prayers?….and how you would kneel each night by your bed and start each prayer with “Dear Sir”?….Well I try Bett….really I do. But all that comes out most nights is “Dear Sir, What the fuck are you thinking?”  I guess right now you’ll have to pray hard enough for both of us.  The kids all send their love….especially Noah.

xxoo – Cathy

Into the Woods

Dear Aunt Mary,

Its been so long since I’ve written. I hardly know where to start. Perhaps at the beginning? Once upon a time we lived in a little house by the bay…and nothing really bad ever happened. That is until that day last March that Noah caught cancer. Or perhaps I should say that cancer caught him?  Either way the two of them will be inseparable for quite a while, so I suppose we shouldn’t waste time quibbling about it.  I think I will forever hold it against March though.

There are so many things to know right now…and so many things that will never matter again.  Cancer does a lot of things (as Noah says “Cancer makes you cute”)…..but it does nothing better than bring focus and perspective to the periphery of things.  The secret places. The edges, the outlands, the unexamined back meadows. So here we go Aunt Mary- off into the wild blue yonder….into the woods….far from the shore…hoping that before too long we can find our way home…to the little house by the bay where nothing really bad ever happens.

Love,  Cathy