Reverie from a Hospice Bed

(Note:  this is FICTION, folks)

Oh, I smell something that reminds me of Grandmother Roberts’ Cape Jasmine bushes.  Mary must have brought that little plant into my room while I was asleep.  She’s such a good sister.  She didn’t really have to come down here and stay at my place and feed the cats and tend to me for as long as I’m in this lovely Hospice place.  Jonathan could have fed the cats, but he needs to work, and besides, it’s nice to have someone with me who’s known me almost all my life.

That smell—some people think Cape Jasmine blossoms are tawdry, odoriferous imitations of gardenias, and maybe they are, but I’ve always loved that aroma.  So pungent, like you just buried your nose in a perfume bottle.  When I was in elementary school—let me think, it must have been in the summertime when the Cape Jasmine bloomed—grandmother would pick a bunch of blossoms and tie them in threes with a rubber band—I bet she saved the rubber bands from the newspaper every day—and then she’d put the bouquets on a tray with wet napkins underneath and encourage me to go door-to-door in her neighborhood and sell the bouquets for a dime apiece.  Maybe she did it to help me get a little spending money; maybe she did it to try to help me get over being so shy—I don’t know really why she did it, but I both appreciated it and dreaded it.  I could hardly make myself go up to a door and knock and ask the stranger who answered if they wanted to buy a bouquet for a dime.  Plus, Cape Jasmine flowers are very delicate and they turn brown if you touch them or bang them around too much, so that was also a problem.  But I did love the smell.  Carrying that tray of Cape Jasmine bouquets—that was heaven.  Heaven.  Surely it’s not streets paved in gold and angels on clouds and St. Peter at some gigantic gate. I wonder…..

I must have dozed off.  There’s that Cape Jasmine small again. I used to have such an acute sense of smell, and also of taste.  Every aroma and every taste was so powerful that I either hated it or loved it.  Seldom in-between. I loved those Cape Jasmine flowers.  I hate Narcissus.  I love 4 o’clocks and roses.  But I don’t like real orange blossoms.  Funny, I love the smell of the mock orange blossoms.  I remember when we bought that house in Pfafftown there was a mock orange bush right near the front door, and it bloomed for two years and then we had a hard freeze and the bush died.  I missed that mock orange.  I never did get around to replacing it.

Oh, I guess I drifted off again.  The nice thing about this place is the nurses try to never let the pain get started.  But then I get a little drifty.  It feels so comfy just lying here, not really moving, just looking around, I see that bush now.  Two little blossoms and what an aroma.

I didn’t know about mock oranges until I went to college.  Sherry and Dorothy and I would walk to town down one street and come back on another street, and coming back we would pass that store—what was that woman’s name who ran it? Something exotic, and she sold incense and do-dads from India like scarves and things and that’s where my Nefertiti bust came from. The bush was in front of her store and I always loved it and stopped to just drink in the aroma with big breaths and Sherry and Dorothy would walk on ahead.  They didn’t think it was anything special.  And then Sherry, bless her heart, found Jesus later on in life and lost the outrageous, Auntie Mame self that she was in college.  Oh well.  She probably had her reasons.

Oh, hello.  Yes, I guess I’m ready for my pill again.  I don’t really feel all that bad, but let’s take it anyway.  I’m such a good patient, aren’t I?  Do you like my plant?  Do you care for how they smell?  Some people don’t like it, but I just love it.  Do you know where it came from?  Was it my sister?  I thought so.  She’s the only one who’d know about Cape Jasmine. See you in a few hours.

Hmmmm.  Thinking about smells and aromas.  I really wish us old people didn’t lose so much of our senses of smell and taste.  I remember that Granddaddy Hunter used to complain that store-bought tomatoes just didn't taste like tomatoes used to and I thought it was because he was old (gosh, he must have been in his 60’s and I thought he was ancient) but now I know that store-bought tomatoes DON’T really taste like ones from your own garden.  And eggs.  Store-bought eggs are nothing like Grandmother’s eggs fresh from the hen.  Pretty much everything is like that.  Progress.  I guess we take the bad with the good.  Good that it doesn’t take weeks to get from Miami to California.  Bad that the California fruit is picked green and allowed to ripen in transit or in the store or on my counter instead of on the tree.  

Oh well, it isn’t going to matter much longer.  I wonder how long.  How long will I just be lying here, comfortable and conscious? Well, pretty much conscious, I do sleep a lot.  Nothing seems to matter much.  I wonder if it’s the meds, or is it me?  I used to say that denial is a great coping mechanism and that I’ve used it frequently.  Is that what I’m doing now?  Is that why nothing much matters?  Well anyway, I’m glad to smell Cape Jasmine one more time. 

As The Storm Moved Out To Sea--Gilda Club writing class prompt

As the storm moved out to sea, she gazed at the horizon and thought about the last few hours. 

Never again, she thought.  I’m too old to be staring down a hurricane, oh, excuse me, tropical storm.  Well, it was a storm all right.  But where could you go on this planet, with climate changing everywhere it seemed, where you could escape Mother Nature?

The last few hours had been a nightmare, but thank God that was in the past.  Mother Nature’s storm was over.  The storm in her mind, though, was just beginning again.

James, she said to her son later. They were just sitting down to a cold supper, thanks to the power being out.  I’ve been thinking

.

Uh-oh, mom.  The last time you told me you’d been thinking, you said you were stopping the chemo.  Maybe you’ve had a change of heart?

No, it’s not that.  I TOLD you I’d start chemo again if this Beast roars again, but I wasn’t doing chemo just for the hell of it, HOPING to keep it caged.  I wanted to feel good again, even if it was only for a little while.  And I was feeling good again, at least until this damn storm hit.  Now I’m all ambivalent.  I did not like for a minute sitting in the bathtub, waiting for the roof to blow off, or that tree to fall on the house, or lightning to strike the old antenna and start a fire that would smoke us to death. I did not enjoy facing Father Death.  In fact, I was scared witless and afraid I wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.  And you know what? It turns out I DO want to live to see another day. 

I want you to be here tomorrow, too, James said softly.

I know you do, son, and that’s part of my ambivalence.  Who am I living for?  Me?  Or you? Or that precious little girl of yours?  Or my sister?  Or the step-kids?  Or my ex—your dad? Or my friends?  Let’s face it.  My friends would get over it—sooner rather than later. The step-kids, likewise.  My sister would be sad, but she’s such a pragmatist, she’d understand.  That little grandgirl is still too young to really miss me very long.  In a few years, she’ll have forgotten ever knowing me.  That leaves you and me, honey. 

What are you trying to say, Mom?

I’m not sure exactly.  I think I’m saying that as long as fighting this Beast is more of a skirmish, not an out-and-out battle, with pain and war wounds and PTSD, I’ll probably keep on with treatments.  But I’m not sure that I any longer want to face long periods of misery, or devastating treatments with no going back to an earlier stage of health.  On the other hand, I hate the idea of putting myself ahead of you.  Your whole life I’ve always tried to put you first, or at least equal to me, when I’ve made decisions that affected us both.  You know that.  You do the same with your little Laura.  It’s what parents do. Or most parents do—most of the time. Oh, my.  This has me so depressed.

 Mom, maybe we ought to wait until at least the power and the water are back on, and the carport is repaired and the water’s out of the basement before you start making life-changing decisions.  Things seem pretty grim to you right now.  Maybe it’ll seem brighter in a week or so.

Maybe. Maybe not. But you’re probably right.  This storm took the starch right out of me.  I’ll give it until we get the house back in shape and see how I feel then.  The one thing I do need to know now, though, is this.  When, not if, this cancer comes back and I go back on the so-called last chemo available, are you going to be able to let this be MY decision?  If I decide to go off the chemo and let nature take its course?

I think so, Mom.  I can’t bear to have to have you gone, but I can’t stand to see you suffer, or even if you’re not in pain, just lying there not able to have a real life.  So I’ll try, Mom.  I’ll try not to interfere.

Thank you, son.  I love you so much.

I know you do, Mom. I love you, too.

As I Walked By the Restaurant---Gilda's Club writing class prompt

As I walked by the restaurant, the whiff of frying fish brought me right back to that summer in Boston. It was the summer of 1974, to be exact, and Larry and I were there for twelve weeks.  In Lexington and Concord, really.  We were living in a big rented house in Lexington, just down the street from “Battle Green” and I was working in Concord, just up the road from Walden Pond.  

Larry was NOT working, for the first time since he was old enough to push a wheelbarrow, although in theory he was writing the prospectus for his dissertation, which I guess he did do as he eventually did finish his PhD.  Anyhow, it was the most decadent 12 weeks of my life up until then, and since then as well.  Lord, what fun it was.  And how guilty I should be feeling, but I don’t.

There was a whole crowd of us from all points around the country working at Ginn & Company, a publishing company that’s probably not in existence anymore, but in those days they published a lot of textbooks, and I worked for an NSF funded science curriculum project that had been picked up by Ginn to do the final editing and publishing of our materials.  But meanwhile, there still was a lot yet to be written, and about 25 of us were “the writing project.”  

Only two of us brought our spouses:  I and a guy from our Tallahassee headquarters, and we two couples wound up renting together a spacious home along with another single Tallahassee lassie.  Since we were the only ones not living in an RV or a college dorm, the “office parties” either took place at our abode or at a restaurant or a park. And even when we weren’t having whole group gatherings, we and our housemates made a point out of trying out as many of Boston’s seafood restaurants as possible.  We only cooked “at home” about 6 times in that whole 12 weeks.

 

One restaurant in particular (here tell the story of Larry and the saucy waitress).

            Then there was the evening when our friend Michael came to Boston to attend a science educator convention.  We had already agreed to hold the “traditional” Friday night office get-together at our place, so before anyone arrived, Larry and I went together in our little VW bug to pick up Mike at Brandeis University where he was staying. Mike had hardly gotten settled in the back seat when he pulled out a fat doobie from his shirt pocket.  I’d never known Mike to smoke cigarettes, much less a joint, but he lit right up and blew out a cloud of sweet smelling marijuana smoke, then  handed it forward.  Larry waved it away with “Are you nuts? I’m driving!”  

But I wasn’t driving so I took a long drag and eventually blew out my own big cloud of smoke. Look, dueling clouds, I said with a giggle.  Then Quick, roll up the windows, the last thing we want is to get b. u. s. t. e. d.  Buck (the director of this writing project) would shit a brick if we got arrested.  Can’t you just see it?  Writers for high school science books charged with drug possession.  I’d never work again.  And I can’t imagine, Mike, that the president of XY University would be happy to find that his new Assistant Professor of Chemistry was caught personally testing the molecular structure of weed.  With that, Mike and I dissolved in laughter.  Seeing each other laugh made us laugh harder.  Hearing each other laugh made us laugh even harder.  Even ol’ Lar, the stone cold sober driver delivered a chuckle or two.  Every time it seemed that the laughter was getting under control, someone would say B U S T E D, and there we’re go all over again.   Larry finally stopped at a Pewter Pot, a coffee and muffin place, to try to get us sobered up before we got home to host the party. 

Well, we finally got home, drove into the driveway and found half our guests out in the driveway leaning up against someone’s car and passing a joint around.  They had started the party without us. Someone had lit a bunch of candles for the only light, wine and munchies were on the counter in the kitchen, there was already some canoodling going on in dark corners by married people—married, but not to each other.

Calm the story here by telling about mowing the yard with the rotary Lawnmower our landlady left for us.

Spice up the story by describing the weekend trip to Vermont with Jack and with Delta Dawn playing on the 8-track in the VW the whole way there.

There were some surprises that summer, well, many surprises, but one in particular involved our 5^th housemate—the single woman.  Somewhere in Boston she found a young female thing to love, and often spent the late evenings with her parked in our driveway where they made out madly. All within easy observation from our bedroom window.  Larry was all for this, as he always had sort of a thing for girl on girl sex, but our other married housemates were totally blown away (and not in a good way) as they had known this woman for years and hadn’t a clue that she was gay.  This was 1974, after all, and most gays were still in the closet.

Don’t forget the prime rib story at the George Washington Inn.

Plus the Legal seafood story at Jack's temporary quarters with lobsters and butter and corn on the cob and beer.

About half-way into the summer Larry decided to buy a sailboat at Sears. This was a very small single hull sailboat that was “guaranteed” to be able to ride safely on the top of a car.  It only weighed one hundred pounds.  I’d had one similar to it in an earlier marriage and I’d loved it.  It was the only boat I ever felt confident to handle by myself.  So off to Sears Larry went and soon arrived back at the Lexington house with a giant cardboard box tied to the top of the VW with numerous yellow ropes. Some hours later, and with the help and intrusion of many of the summer writers, the sailboat was assembled, and then disassembled and tied upside down to the top of the VW bug.  All the rest of the summer we drove around Boston like that. Tiny car, small boat. Locked together like a mating of two different species.

Tell the story of the maiden voyage of the sailboat.

 Tell the 4^th  of July story of the picnic on the banks of the Charles River.  Boston Pops.  Trying to get into locked bathroom.  Peeing in the bushes.  In mid-whiz, I became aware of footsteps coming my way.  Nothing I could do about it, except hope that the couple would look away either in politeness or in disgust, but at least look away.  My only consolation was that I would never see those folks ever again.

All too soon, the 12 weeks passed and we loaded up our road-weary VW Bug with our stuff and the sailboat on the top.  The sailboat was slightly longer than the car, and gave us a slightly top-heavy look.  The big drawback was that since the boat extended out over the hood (and beyond), we had to stop waaaaay back from stoplights in order to see when the light turned green.  Luckily we were on Interstates for most of the trip.

We arrived back in Tallahassee satiated with experiences, restaurant food, wine, and laughter, with barely an ounce of energy left to unpack the car.  We left the sailboat on the roof of the car and collapsed into bed where we spent the better part of three days in recovery from sleep deprivation.  Dang.  What a great summer.  

The Big Old House On the Corner

As I walked through the neighborhood, I couldn’t help staring in the window of the big old house on the corner.  For the first time ever, there was music coming through the open window.  Loud music.  Boogie-woogie music.  Heavy bass.  Repetition.  You couldn’t ignore it and I couldn’t  hardly stand it.  I just stood there on the sidewalk, not caring  it was obvious  I was staring, and stared away. 

That had been my grandparents’ house during my growing up years.  Papaw had a lumber yard in town and they were what Mamoo called prosperous.  But they both have been gone now for a dozen years, and my uncle Sonny, who inherited the house, went to jail shortly after when the feds caught him making moonshine in the garage out back.  Sonny never had much sense, anyhow.  He didn’t figure on the sheriff getting suspicious when there was lots of coming and going at a house where just one single man lived.  

So the house has been sitting there, empty for better n’ ten years now.  And except for a seasonal trim of the lawn in front by a jail trustee that the sheriff sends over, not a lick of paint or other upkeep has happened to that big old place.  So naturally it began running down and looking pitiful next to the other big houses on the street. 

I walk by the house most every day.  I like to keep up some exercise to keep my joints from freezing up like Mrs. Luke's done.  She just sat on her porch after Mr. Luke died and did not one thing, just sat and watched the traffic going by, and don’t you know, it wasn’t no time before she couldn’t hardly get around at all.  Our bodies need to move to keep oiled up.  Everybody knows that, or should know it.

Anyway, here was loud music coming out of Papaw’s house.  I haven’t never been one to just stand around when something draws my attention; I like to get to the bottom of it.  So I went right up the steps onto the porch and knocked real hard at Papaw’s front door.  I knew it would take quite a banging to be heard over that loud music.  Nothing happened at first.  I guess my knocking just sounded like it come from the record player.  But then the music stopped.  I guess it got to the end of a song, and so I knocked again, real loud.  

This time I heard steps inside coming toward the door.  I backed up a little bit, cause it occurred to me that maybe it warn’t too smart to be interfering with something that wasn’t really my business.  The big old oak front door creaked open, and I could see a person standing there behind the screen door (which was latched incidentally, I’d already tried it.)

The person was kinda hid in the dark of the hallway, but I could make out that it was a boy, maybe a half-grown boy about twelve or thirteen.  He wadn’t too filled out and not yet any taller than me, so I wan’t too worried that I was in any danger.

“What  you  doin’ in my Papaw’s house?” I blurted out.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m the one needs to know who YOU are,” I said.

“I didn’t think it would be a problem,” he said.

“You here by yourself?” I asked.

“Who are you anyway?” he asked again.

“I’m the granddaughter of the man used to own this house,” I said, “and I’m the niece of the man who owns it now, and being as how he’s in jail, I don’t think you have any permission to be staying here.”

“Well,” he said, “Daddy wrote me that I could stay here for a while till I figure out where else to go.”

“Your Daddy? Who’s your Daddy?

Reginald Whitehouse, but everyone calls him Sonny.

Oh, law.  Sonny don’t have any kids.

He has me, he said.  He just didn’t know it till recently.

Each Time I Hear That Sound--prompt in Gilda's Club writing class

Each time I hear that sound, it reminds me of jingle bells. The owner of this store has tied some bells to the door so he’ll know when someone comes in.

Jingle bells remind me of Christmas, and until recently, Christmas was my very favorite time of the year. Not because it celebrates Jesus’ birthday, although when I was a kid and went to Sunday School, we did get a lot of teaching about The Christmas Story (or, according to my Baptist church pastor, The Greatest Story Ever Told.)  But for me, it was all the commercial stuff and family stuff and decorations and anticipation and opening presents—my mother always made sure we had lots of presents, even when she wrapped everything separately.  Two pairs of socks; two presents. Coloring book and crayons. Two presents.

It was driving to Grandmother and Granddaddy’s house early Christmas morning and having dinner there with them and Aunt Olive and Uncle William, and then driving back to our town in the afternoon and going to Grandmother and Pa’s house and eating leftovers and seeing all the aunts and uncles and cousins on that side of the family. 

It was seeing the Christmas lights in the stores and in people’s windows.  There was one year when blue bulbs in electric candles in every window was very popular in the ritzier section of our town.  I didn’t care for the blue bulbs.  For me, Christmas colors were green and red and white, and maybe gold and silver.  But not blue.

My mother used to buy a package of jingle bells at the dime store and tie them into the bows on the packages.  Then, knowing my mother, she saved them to use again the next year.  Along with the bows and the paper that wasn’t too damaged by the Scotch tape.

One year, the Budweiser Clydesdale horses came to our town for a Christmas parade, and they happened to start the parade near the street where we lived.  And when I walked home from school on the last day before Christmas vacation, there were the horses and their bell; it was absolutely magical.

I still love the sound of jingle bells.  I have a pair of jingle bell earrings that I drag out at least once every Christmas season and annoy everyone, including myself after about an hour of jingle jingling every time I move my head.  But I still do it.  It’s a tradition.

I even like the sound of jingle bells on TV commercials starting in about September or October nowadays.  It used to be the day after Thanksgiving that Christmas decorations and songs and commercials appeared, but Retail Commerce has kept inching the season longer and longer.  Soon it will be the day after the 4^th of July fireworks die down.  If that happens, maybe I will get satiated with the sound of jingle bells. 

 And that would be a shame.

An Inexhaustible Storehouse--peggy's prompt of 10/24/14

I live with several inexhaustible storehouses.  One is my physical house.  My rooms filled with stuff, things, precious objects, worthless trinkets, memorable items.  The rooms are not nearly as filled as they were, say, 25 or so years ago, when I was at the height of my holdings.  I’ve been downsizing ever since.  So many things have gone the way of yard sales, donations to Goodwill, given to friends and neighbors, sold on Craigslist, eBay, Amazon….it exhausting to even think about it.  

Although I haven’t been nearly as acquisitive and pack-ratty as many of my friends, still…..I look around my rooms, and almost every object brings up a different memory.  Where I was when I got the carved wood African animals. Who gave me the artist’s proof that hangs over my TV.  Why I bought that particular couch.  How old Jonathan was when he produced that finger painting that his teacher proudly presented us with, and that I had framed and have hung on a wall wherever I’ve lived ever since.  My cherished piano and how many times the poor thing has been moved.  Can’t have been good for it, but it still has a magnificent tone, at least to me whose hearing is not what it once was.

Lately I’ve been listing a lot of the small things I’ve accumulated over the years— can’t say “collected” because that would imply some sort of organized plan—on a website called Etsy.  Things like a two-tiered party candy or cookie dish that someone, I have no memory of who, gave Dennis (my first husband) and me as a wedding gift some 40 years ago. It might seem a sacrilege to sell off wedding gifts for money, but I still have a few other things from that first marriage and as they say, you can’t take it with you. 

Etsy is mostly for people to sell their handcrafted items, but they do allow the sale of “vintage” items, which by their definition is more than 20 years old.  By that definition, practically everything in my house is eligible.  So I look around and my eye falls on an antique bowl that used to be part of a pitcher-and-bowl set that people had in their bedrooms before they had indoor plumbing.  The pitcher, which I loved, got broken many years ago. Larry (with my money) bought that at the first and only auction we ever went to.  One reason we didn’t go to more was that I could see that Larry was a gambler at heart, and also couldn’t bear to lose, so letting him loose in a hot bidding environment was going to be costly.

But back to me and my possessions which seem to be inexhaustible, despite my efforts to off-load them onto other possessors.  There are some things that I will never part with, and my son and my sister, and perhaps my step-daughter will have to see to their “final” destination.  Some things I have already determined who should get, as in, Larry should get the art piece he made that hangs on my wall, along with the framed grave rubbing that he made in Concord MA cemetery in 1974, and the wood block print made by our artist friend, now deceased, and maybe the finger painting Jonathan did.  See what I mean about how these possessions are just loaded with memories?  Rich memories. Complicated memories. Happy and sad memories. I can’t let those pieces go until or unless I have to.

These objects, these things, chronicle the ages and stages of my life, from the milking stool that my Granddaddy Hunter bought me at the Checkerboard Feed Store in Ovieto, Florida when I was about three years old, up to the lovely green ceramic vase that I bought at a Goodwill store after I moved here this year. I didn’t have a good toothbrush holder and it’s perfect in that function.

I bet I could list the many stages of my life and then find at least one possession from that era.  I just mentioned the milking stool from early childhood.  Then there’s the original Monopoly set from my middle years.  And there’s my official high school graduation photo that my Mother put in an elaborate frame and which I inherited when she died.  And college.  Oh my gosh.  College. The biggest thing would be the twelve framed watercolor calendars for the months of 1963, the calendars sent by my housemother from Korea.  And the smallest is probably the yo-yo sent to me through the mail by Anne, my roommate, unwrapped, just the plain yo-yo, with one of those old-fashioned package tags fastened to the end of the yo-yo string.

As I think about it, I think I’ve previously gotten rid of things that didn’t mean much to me—furniture and dishes and kitchenware and books that hadn’t been off the shelf in decades.  That means that the things surrounding me now are more likely to be special, to carry stories inside of them (or inside of me) and to be harder to let go of. 

It’s funny; that reminds me of one of the few things I’ve given away that I wish I had back.  It’s a wine bottle in the shape of a fish.  I bought the wine when we lived in Iowa City in the early 1970’s.  Not for the wine; it was an impulse purchase for the bottle.  It probably cost all of three dollars, maybe.  But we drank the wine—not very good—and I kept the bottle.  I stored it inside an oak “commode” that we also bought in Iowa at a farm estate sale, and that I had brought home to our two-bedroom apartment and put in the empty second bedroom, along with Larry’s arc welder which he just had to have, and then I stripped the old varnish off and refinished the chest. 

Anyhow, the wine bottle sat there through all the many subsequent moves until I was preparing to move here. I brought it out and looked at it and put it on a table with other things I was giving away to anyone who would take them.  It was picked up and taken by one of my friends—that’s the saving grace, at least it didn’t go to Goodwill, I know where it is. But sometimes I miss it.  I miss having it.  I miss knowing it’s there in its little cubby, just waiting for the right moment to be used as a vase, or a candle holder.  But that moment never came, and now it’s too late.  Sniff.  That’s why I have to be careful about what I list on Etsy.  It’s just possible that someone will buy it and then it’ll be really gone, not just out of sight.

Acceptance---peggy's prompt of 11/08/14

Boy, I should be able to hold forth on “acceptance.”  That’s what the past almost eight years have been about for me….trying to accept that I have incurable breast cancer, cancer that has spread to other parts of my body besides my left breast (which is long gone),  to be “beaten back”  only to appear again in yet another spot.  Damn, I’m tired of this.  I guess that statement, in and of itself, proves that I have not yet reached acceptance of my condition. 

Part of the problem is that “my condition” keeps changing.  Luckily, it hasn’t all been downhill since March of 2007 when I was first diagnosed and started on this journey toward “acceptance.”  And most of the downhill sections have not been because of symptoms of the cancer, but because of side effects of the various treatments I’ve been through.  And, like the cancer itself, some of the side effects, once they appeared, aren’t ever going to go away, to go back to the normal condition.  Two of the big ones are lymphedema and peripheral neuropathy.  I’ve had minimal improvements in both, but always the improvements don’t last.  Sigh.  Now that’s another whole set of things to fit into the acceptance box.

Others are diminished sense of taste, which I lost, but then regained partially, likewise sense of smell.  This one can be a real problem as I have three cats, and they can really load up a litterbox in short order, so I have to clean it on a routine schedule as I can’t rely on my sense of smell to tell me that it’s time.  So if you come to visit me and it seems a bit odoriferous, just gently wave your hand in the direction of the cat box, and I’ll clean it post haste. Luckily Jonathan’s sense of smell is still intact, and he acts as the nose for me.

And now there’s a new side effect which apparently will not go away at all, but could continue indefinitely.  That’s the appearance of fibrosis—scar-like tissue under the skin—which has appeared and grown and spread under my chin and on the top of my shoulders, especially the left, and is caused by the radiation I had to that area (twice) in order to “beat back” the cancer that had spread to lymph nodes in that region.  This is a real complication for me, as I have gone from a young girl with a long thin neck to an old lady with a thick lumpy neck (not an inducement for me to admire myself in the mirror).  And to make matters worse, the last several recurrences of the cancer have been in lymph nodes in the neck and shoulder region, so when I feel a new lump growing, the question is:  Is this a progression of the cancer or a progression of the fibrosis?  One could eventually kill me, the other just makes me lumpy.  And perhaps just pushes on my esophagus and my vocal cords, making it difficult to swallow and to talk.  When (or if) it shuts off my airway, then I’m in big trouble.

Fatigue has also been one of the plagues visited upon me by the various toxic chemotherapies  and other drugs so necessary to the continuance of life—my life, that is.  And until my palliative care doctor prescribed Ritalin, which has become my favorite drug in the whole wide world because it increases my energy, I spent seven plus years forcing myself to carry on through each day.  I could get excited and energetic when around folks I like and enjoy, but back alone with myself, the fatigue would often just overwhelm me.  I spent a lot of early afternoons napping in my ancient blue chair on my porch in Asheville.  Not because I felt any better for having taken a nap, but because I just dropped off to sleep without intending to.  Things are better with the Ritalin, hooray, hooray.

It’s a testament to how little most folk know about metastatic breast cancer—and I won’t get on my soapbox here—that they think when MBC patients talk about side effects, they assume it’s about nausea and vomiting.  And that can be a problem, but never does it last forever, and usually it can be handled or at least minimized with anti-nausea drugs (or changing chemos).  But for me, the side effects I’ve just mentioned are the big ones.  And there’s a slew of little ones, too.  Like brittle fingernails, or nails that get discolored, or come off, causing pain, unsightliness, bother.  And rashes.  And itching.  And hair loss, or thinning, or changing its character.  And saliva that tastes like salt, or metal. And bloody mucus in the nose.  And dry lips and mouth (lots of people get mouth sores, too.) And constipation and/or diarrhea.  Oh, boy.  You can see why folks with MBC love to talk to another MBC patient—we get to compare notes about side effects.  My mother did the same thing with fellow rheumatoid arthritis sufferers.  Which reminds me, I forgot about pain.  Pain, soreness, stiffness.  And bones that get brittle and break (I’ve had three compression fractures in my spine, the last one a serious one that causes me to wear a brace, use a cane, take pain meds, and suffer back pain in spite of all that.

Well, enough of this.  It’s making ME depressed, no telling what it’s doing to you.  I tell you, though, when someone tells you that your health is everything, you’d better believe it.

Two Years....peggy's prompt of 011014

Two years.  That’s what Dr. Williams intimated, although faithful Christian that he is, he said it isn’t up to him, it’s up to God, that it’s his job is to try to turn this raging beast into a timid kitty which can be backed into a corner and held there. When I asked if I should get my affairs in order, his answer was short, but telling.  Yes, he said. The handouts he provided didn’t include God on the graphs.  They were red and green and yellow lines, showing averages for no treatment, chemo only, chemo and a targeted drug.  All the graphs stopped at two years, with only 20% of patients still to be accounted for. Can I even hope to be in that 20%? 

So for two years, I secretly waited for the sword of Damocles to fall, despite the assurances of friends (who had no particular expertise in the matter) that “you’ll make it.  You’re strong.  I had a friend who…. I heard of one lady who lived for 15 years…..”

And strange to say, after two years I didn’t really feel happy, or relieved, or like I’d beaten the beast.  Instead, I felt confused, bewildered, a little bit betrayed.  After all, I’d gotten used to the idea that my life was about over.  My plans were made.  I had a will, advanced directives, a list of gifts to friends and relations from my collection of stuff.  And now I was going to have to make new plans, get adjusted to a new reality that was much more open-ended, with an end expected but nowhere in sight.

Now after almost eight years, I no longer feel that the end is in sight.  Instead, I wonder how it is that I could conceivably be dead in a year.  Yet, every Christmas I know that it very well may be my last.  

And instead of feeling that I have “my affairs in order”, I now feel that everything is topsy-turvy, half-finished, unfinished, forgotten, swept under the rug.  I can’t seem to get a focus.  Mostly I just take my medicine (medicines—very plural), see my doctors, assess my body for new lumps, bumps, aches, and twinges, and carry on with emptying the catbox.  What else can one do?

She Looked Around and Didn't Recognize Anyone

  (Note:  This is a fiction story, but based on what I can imagine might have taken place had my father died before my mother, instead of how it really happened, that she died first.)

 

Minnie peered out the front window, looking for the mailman.  It was about time for him to come. She looked around and didn’t recognize anyone. There was a young woman pushing a baby stroller talking to an older woman who had a big German shepherd on a leash.  Across the street a man was mowing his lawn with a riding lawnmower. It wasn’t totally surprising that Minnie didn’t recognize anyone.  She had only lived in this small town about six months and she didn’t really know anyone except for Gwendie, of course, who had her own house a few blocks from her small apartment.  Minnie didn’t want to be seen hovering by the door waiting for the mailman—that might seem desperate—so she peeked out the window when she heard his little truck stop out front, and waited until she heard it drive off again before she stepped out into the hall and walked the few steps to the mailboxes.  That’s when she’d run into Mrs. Johnson, the next-door neighbor, who was sorting through her mail and depositing most of it in the nearby recyle bin. 

“Hi,” she said to Minnie. “I’m Mable Barnes.  I live right next door to you.  I’ve seen you come in with, who’s that, your daughter?”

 She’s been peeking out the window, too, thought Minnie. 

“Yes, she said,” that’s my daughter Gwendie.  She lives over on Maple Drive. She’s who persuaded me to move here after my husband died.  She thinks I’ll be better off here than back in Florida when I’m from.” 

I’m talking too much, she thought to herself. 

“Well, said Mable Barnes.  You’re a lucky one.  I’ve got two kids right here in Asheville and do you think I ever see either one of them?  No way.  They’re busy, tied up, in the middle of something, every excuse you can think of.

“That’s too bad,” said Minnie.  “I will say Gwendie’s been real good to me since I’ve been here.  She calls every day and stops by almost every other day.  She and a friend of her helped me to unpack and get settled and get pictures up and whatnot.” 

“Well, good for her,” Mable said.  “We’ll have to have coffee together one of these days.” 

Minnie didn’t get a chance to say that she doesn’t drink coffee because Mabel was off down the hall and into her apartment before Minnie could get the words out.  Oh well, Minnie thought.  Probably doesn’t matter.  She’ll probably never really get around to inviting me anyway.  And she headed back the few steps to her own apartment.

Well at least I can tell Gwendie that I have, too, met someone and even had a conversation with her.  She’s afraid my being shy is going to keep me isolated.  I actually don’t mind being what she calls isolated.  I like my privacy.  I don’t need the phone ringing and people running in and out.  I do like it when Jonathan comes with his Mom, though, although he’s getting to be a typical teenager and isn’t much interested in long talks with me.  He just wants to watch TV or play his video games and drink tons of Pepsi.  I don’t guess I should say anything about that to his mother, though.  I’ve always thought the grandparents should keep out of the parenting of the grandkids.  Joe’s Mom and Dad and my Mother and Daddy never criticized how Joe and I handled the girls.  Well, how I handled the girls.  Joe pretty much left everything about child-raising to me.

The phone rings.  The regular phone.  Minnie has insisted on having what Gwendie calls a landline, and Gwendie has insisted that Minnie also have a cell phone. 

“Hello,” Minnie says, knowing who it will be. 

“Mama, it’s me.  I’m calling to invite you to something special on Saturday.  Our Board for the Women Writers Scholarship Fund is having a Book Fair on Saturday at one of the local churches not too far from here.  You’d enjoy it, I think.  I have to put in a couple of hours working the registration table and you could come along.  It’s a bunch of local writers each having a table and putting out their books for the public to browse through and hopefully buy.  The proceeds will go to the Scholarship Fund.”

“I don’t know, said Minnie. It’s hard for me to stand for any length of time, you know.” 

“You can sit down any time you want to, Mama.  I’ll have a special chair for you.”

“I don’t usually buy books either, Minnie said, now that you take me to the library every week.” 

“You don’t have to buy anything, Mama.  It’s like a store, you just look and only buy if you see something you really really want.”

“Well, I’ll see, said Minnie. We’ll talk on Friday night and I’ll see how I feel about it. Talk to you soon, then.  I love you.  Bye-bye.”

Minnie hung up the phone.  She’s determined to get me out of this apartment, Minnie thought to herself.  She’s as stubborn as her father was.  And maybe like I am too.  I guess she comes by it honestly.  But I thought I was doing OK in Fort Pierce after Joe died.  I wonder now why I let her talk me into that move up here.  I miss a lot of things back there.  Not really friends, though. I didn’t have all that many friends of my own.  Mostly we saw Joe’s family and our neighbors.  Our old friends have died or moved away.  And Joe had his own friends at the coffee shop that I didn’t ever meet until the funeral.  Lord, they were so nice at the funeral, coming up to me to say, “You don’t know me.  I was one of Joe’s buddies at the Donut Circus.  He’s sure gonna be missed.  They don’t make ‘em any finer than Joe Roberts.”  She’d thanked each one and was surprised at how many there were.  

She hadn’t cried much then.  She wasn’t much of a crier, and she hadn’t cried at all since the move.  What’s the use?  We all have to make the best of whatever situation we’re in. But after the funeral she hadn’t contemplated moving, not until Gwendie started putting her two cents in.  Now, it’s been a year since Joe died and six months since she moved here and Gwendie is still doing what she considers gentle pushing to get her to quote, have a life, unquote.

Knowing That Changed Everything

Her mother glanced quickly through the pile of mail that had accumulated while they were on vacation, and stopped suddenly at a large fat envelope.  This one’s for you, Emily, she said.  Were you expecting something in the mail?  Emily thought quickly—she hadn’t expected a response so soon or she would have made sure to be the first one through the mail.  Not really, she replied.  Well, here it is, her mother said.  No return address.  How strange.

Emily took the envelope from her mother as casually as she could muster and said, I’ll just take all my vacation stuff upstairs and sort out what needs to go into the laundry.  I’ll be down in a bit to help you start dinner.

No hurry, her mother said.  We’ve got plenty of time before dinner.  I’ll have to see what’s in the freezer that we can quickly defrost.  Or maybe something with eggs. She didn’t say anything else about the letter, but Emily knew she hadn’t forgotten about it and was waiting to hear Emily’s explanation.

Emily gathered up her various bags of souvenirs and not-read books and vacation clothes bought for ridiculously high prices at the hotel shop and made her way up the stairs, having stashed the fat envelope into one of the bags when her mother wasn’t watching. She turned at the top of the stairs into her bedroom and partially closed the door behind her.  Her mother would definitely be suspicious if she closed the door shut.  But she needed as much privacy as she could muster right now.

Sagging down on the twin bed that had been hers since she graduated from a crib, Emily fished the envelope from the souvenir bag and held it in her hand.  The postmark was smudged, but Emily knew it was from Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina.  That’s where she had sent her request for information—information on how to obtain adoption records for adoptions in that state 18 years ago. This must be some forms to fill out.

She took her nail file from the bedside table and carefully sliced across the top of the envelope; then slid the set of papers out and unfolded them.

Dear Ms. Fulton:

In response to your request for information regarding adoption proceedings in this state prior to 2005, when the law was revised, I am enclosing forms on which you can make an official request regarding a specific adoption.  Please be advised that for adoptions made prior to 2005, it is exceedingly difficult for adoptees to obtain information about birth mothers or fathers, as the proceedings were sealed by Court order, and will require another Court order to open the records. 

However, should you desire to petition the Court to open a particular set of records, the enclosed forms should be filled out, by you, signed and notarized and returned to the address provided.

Yours sincerely,

Brock D. Thornton, III

Deputy Director

Division of Vital Statistics

State of North Carolina

 

Emily’s pulse quickened.  This made everything seem real suddenly, not just a secret wish, a hidden desire that had grown slowly during her teen years, but now it would have to be out in the open.  Somehow just knowing that changed everything.