Recently I have found out about some people I know who have been diagnosed with kidney cancer. One of them is an old friend from high school who was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer just like Mel was and the other is my cousin's daughter a young 23-year-old single mom of two young children. It breaks my heart when I hear news like this (I know I don't have the market on this, it affects everyone who hears about it in one way or another). I am sad to think of someone from my past, whom I haven't seen or talked to in 14 years, will likely die and leave a wife and children behind. It breaks open old wounds on my heart. I am sad to think that my cousin's precious child has cancer, maybe it's gone, maybe it won't come back, but once it has been said you have cancer I think the thought of it having been there at all is always niggling at the back of your mind.
I think back to when my mom lost her sisters and brother. Her older sister, Merle died of lung cancer. Never smoked in her life except shirtless in the back of a pickup truck with my mom and their other sister and their children (there is a story behind that). At the time she died she was driving a souped up Camaro. She was my "cool" aunt, the one I could talk about anything with. She fought cancer with everything she had. I saw her a lot between the time she was diagnosed and passed away. Every time I saw here, there was a little bit less of her there. The one time I knew for sure that she knew she was going to die my parents and I, Merle and her husband Paul, had all gone to Albuquerque to see my mom's baby sister who also had cancer. We went to a 50s styles restaurant, and Bonnie (mom's baby sister) wanted us all to sign our napkins and put the date on them, and aunt Merle didn't want to do it. I knew then and there she knew she was going to die. She was usually the ring leader of these kinds of silly, fun things. My mom nursed both of her sisters to the ends of their lives (mom was a nurse). A little bit of her died with each of them. When my mom was a little girl, she went to kindergarten twice because when Merle went she couldn't stand to be away from her while she was at school.
My aunt Bonnie lived in Seattle when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy and was assured by her surgeon that she needed no further treatment. Not long after that she moved to Albuquerque and was found to have metastatic breast cancer in her liver. The only thing that made me feel better with her cancer is that she did not have the excruciating pain that aunt Merle had with her cancer. Bonnie was such a dear sweet lady. She always had a ready smile and a laugh and LOVED to shop (I think the gene has been passed on to my daughter). Once when she was in the hospital to have a blood clot filter placed, the hospital auxilary was having a jewelry sale and she insisted on being put in a wheelchair and all of "us girls" going down to buy some jewelry. My mom lost another piece of her life when she lost her baby sister. You see mom and aunt Merle had practically raised Bonnie. They remember her being born and them putting blankets in a dresser drawer for a safe place for her to sleep, and they took care of her.
My mom's brother Ralph died without my mom being there. Mom and dad had gone to Utah because Ralph was sick. He died as they were pulling into the hospital parking lot. My mom felt a sense of betrayal and loss for not being able to see him once more or to be with him when he died. I told mom that I thought God knew she had had enough of watching her siblings die and I don't think Ralph wanted her to go through that either. All three of her siblings died within just a few years. She was raw for a long time after that. I felt that way when Mel died. I felt cheated. I still think to myself what if he was scared or could have spoken one last time and I wasn't there to comfort him or to hold his hand when he passed from this life to the next.
When my sister Lois was diagnosed with breast cancer, I wanted so badly to be with her. I knew she was scared, but she was also determined and brave. The night my mom came to tell me Lois had cancer, I called her (mom) a liar. I told my mom there was no way my beautiful sister could have cancer. I put the kids to bed and went to bed early. Mel was working nights, and I remember I lay awake all night crying, longing for him to come home and hold me tight. I felt so alone that night. Little did I know 2-1/2 years later I would lose my strong, handsome, funny, flirty, kind husband to cancer. Lois told me she was scared at night, and when Mel came home from work at 1:30 in the morning, we would pray for God to be with her and give her strength and peace and courage. She told me she didn't know what to pray and I told her "just call out the name of Jesus and He will be with you, He will know what you need and what you want to say".
The day Mel was diagnosed with cancer, I had to go to the bathroom at the doctor's scheduling office to compose myself. I was curled up on the hard, cold floor and called my sister. She helped me be strong enough to get out of that office and into the car with Mel so we could go home and decide what to tell Nicole. I told Mel as we drove out of the parking lot that day that our lives would never be the same again, and they weren't. There were a lot of good times, fun, laughter and more love in those years we had left together. We used talk at night in bed, all four of us, and we would share a memory of that day that had made it special for us. I wish now I had written all of that down, but it's still in my heart.
Today I heard from a friend about a family member of hers whose husband is very near death. She is a young woman with a 3-year-old baby. I am absolutely horrified of what she is going to have to go through. You are never ready, never prepared for that kind of life event. I have never met this lady and I just want to reach out and hug her and tell her that it isn't okay, it will never be okay, it will never get better (maybe just a little easier) as time goes on to say a final goodbye to the man you love and the daddy that small baby loves.
So now that all of this has been said, I want to say that what I am going to say next is very selfish and self-serving of me, but it is the way I feel. I don't want to hear about people who according to a doctor should have died years ago from a rare cancer, and they are still alive and Mel is dead. I don't want to hear of new cancer treatments that might save a life or even cure cancer when it is too late for Mel and me. I don't want to hear that the treatment Mel had gave someone else five more years with their family. On the flip side of the coin, I would never wish cancer on anyone, I would never want anyone to have to lose the love of their life, I would never want another child to ever lose their daddy like my kids did, and I don't want people I care about to be afraid to share news with me just because I don't want to hear. I want to know and be involved in the lives of the people I love, good and bad and all the in between. I just wanted to have more time with Mel, and that will never change, but I still want to throw myself on the floor and scream like hell and want to know why me, why us, why my kids.
I know in my head (or what's left of my brain at this age) that this is the same for people everywhere, everyday, all over the world. I am not the only person to have suffered this kind of loss, heard devastating news, watched the horrifying details of a disease who eats away a little bit every day of the person you love. I want people to know that I know they feel that way too. I also want them to know that no one will ever know exactly what it is like because we are all so different. Sometimes I just don't want to hear it because I know the pain and heartache it is going to bring to the next family who has to hear it, and I know how horrifying the aftermath is and that it takes a long time to start to see the light, to see the clouds lifting, to feel the dead weight of grief ease a little bit, and also to know that all of those things come crashing back at you in waves when you least expect it.
This is how I sum up cancer, one of my passwords is f*&* cancer, and I mean it.
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