A Good Day

I just finished my nightly phone conversation with my mother.

We’re both cold today. The temperature was a very un-Florida-like thirty-seven when I woke this morning and not much higher than that up in Clearwater where mom lives.

We each spent a lot of time in bed today, under the covers to keep warm. I know we have it easier than people in Minnesota but staying under the covers today seemed like a good idea.
So we complained a bit on the phone. We talked about how we were tired, in addition to being cold.

Then we talked about Barak Obama. President Barak Obama. We talked about what a wonderful day yesterday was, seeing Barak Hussein Obama take the toast of office administered by a conservative Chief Justice so shaken that he couldn’t get the words of the oath straight. We talked about how good it was to see Dubya headed off stage and how good it was to see Dick Cheney for what we hope is the last time, smirking in a wheelchair with all the confidence of the truly venal.

"I’m glad I lived long enough to see that," my mom said.

"I’m glad, too," I said. And I am. It’s about time. It’s about damn time.

Bitter

I’ve had a tough week.

My wife has been ill, and it’s been rough. I can’t say what’s wrong with her, it wouldn’t be right. But I can say she’s been waging a terrible war against her illness and, unfortunately, losing all but a few of the battles.

It’s hard, in times like these, to take the focus off myself. There’s this feeling I have – rightly or not – that I’m the one who needs help right now. "Damn it," I say to myself, "why this? Why now? What about me?"

"I don’t want to die alone." That’s what I say.

I don’t want to.

Then I think about her and try to put myself inside her head. I can’t. She’s been not well pretty much since the day I left my oncologist’s office in the VA hospital, met her in the waiting room, and told her the news.

"It’s not good."

I remember. Her eyes went kind of blank for a moment as if she was looking into a future she couldn’t comprehend. Then she nodded. "Yes," she said. "I get it."

But she didn’t really get it right away. Not all of it. But as time passed, and I had chemo and didn’t get any better, as my immune system crashed and I puked and bled in unmentionable ways, as I grew sicker, she started to get it. She began to understand the future and now it scares hell out of her. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be inside her head.

In the fellowship I belong to, there’s a lot of talk about God’s will. No matter what happens, I’m told, it’s "God’s Will." The words are always said with reverence, said so large that I know there’s no arguing with them.

That’s baloney. God is supposed to be rational, loving, and just. There’s been nothing rational or loving or just about this last week and my wife’s pain. If God’s intention is to teach me how painful it is to watch someone I love suffer, I’ve learned. I don’t need any more training, so stop, already.

Friends ask what they can do to help and the only response I can make is to ask them to pray. What I don’t tell them is that I don’t think prayer is going to help because the God who would do this isn’t about to listen to any pleas from anybody.

So I've had a tough week.

But nowhere near as tough as my wife's. I wish it would end.

Hopes

Yesterday, I watched – online – an interview Barbara Walters conducted on Patrick Swayze, the actor who is battling pancreatic cancer.

I've only seen a few minutes of Swayze as an actor. Lynne and I went to see "Ghost" the very first time we dated. We were shy - hard to believe, right? - and we were both embarassed by some scene I don't remember. I also don't remember Swayze as a particularly impressive actor. That may have more to do with my memory than with his talent, but it’s a fact. As a consequence, I was not much interested when I first saw a link to his interview. But for some reason, I clicked on the link. I’m glad I did.

Swayze has – like me – already outlived his prognosis. Like me, he has some goals he wants to accomplish before the cancer wins its fight, as it surely will. Like me, Swayze is questioning his faith but not abandoning it. He is feeling angry but hopeful – not for a cure, but for meaningful days. He wonders what is on the other side. He’s scared sometimes. Me too.

At one point in the interview, Walters asked him how long he thought he’d live. At first, Swayze was reluctant to answer. I understand that. After all, that’s a hell of a question to have to answer, isn’t it? Finally, though, he said he hoped to live five years, perhaps long enough for science to find a cure. Then he hedged his bet. He said "averages" gave him about two more years.

It would be wonderful if, somehow, some magic bullet was found to cure Swayze’s cancer – and mine. Meanwhile, he wants to work, to film a television series, to ride horses on his property out west. He hopes to spend some quality time with his loved ones. I hope he realizes all these goals.

I hope the same things for me. There’s a book I want to finish. I want to have a few good months with my wife. I want to hold my grandchildren and share some more stories with my good friend, Mark. I want to go to a few more meetings of the writer's group I've been part of for more than ten years. Maybe there’s some way I could take the helm of a small sailboat again, just for a few minutes. Or read another book that just knocks my socks off.

But there’s a problem with having a lot of hopes when you have cancer. That’s because this disease doesn’t care about the averages. A doctor, asked about Swayze and his illness, put it right. The cancer could kill Swayze quickly, at any time, he said. All it needs is an excuse.

This morning – January 10 – when I went online, I saw another link to a Swayze story. It seems that at about the same time that I was looking at his first interview, he was hospitalized. In the lexicon of cancer, his condition isn’t serious. He has pneumonia. That frequently happens as a side effect of chemotherapy because the same chemicals that fight cancer destroy a body’s ability to fight off infections.

That's a reminder, if one was needed, just how tenuous hopes have to be, how important it is not to link hapiness to specific goals. Sure, it’s wonderful to have a positive attitutude. It’s nice to have plans and hopes and goals but the truth is that the path any terminal cancer patient is on is full of tricky turns and unexpected dangers. There are some wonderful vistas to be seen, but the road can end at any moment.

I hope Swayze is okay. I hope he gets back to his goals. I hope I do, too.

Tree

I took our Christmas tree down earlier today. The living room looks empty without it.

We had a fake tree. We’ve been using it for almost 15 years now. I could claim I bought the tree because I didn’t want to cause a real tree to be chopped down, but that’s not true. I bought it because real trees are too much trouble. They smell good, sure, but they shed needles. They’re expensive. I saw a tree outside the grocery store going for $65.

That’s too much money. Years ago, I bought a Pontiac station wagon for $50. This was back in my drinking days. Though it shimmied at anything over walking speed, it was big enough that I was able to live in it for a few weeks I don't much remember. It ran for almost a year. That’s a purchase that made sense. Not a tree.

Of course, when I was little, my family had real trees. And I loved them. When I was little. Now, they seem to be too much work.

I do love Christmas, though, and the decorations and the good cheer. I’m a bit sad that today is Twelfth Day, the day that marks the official end of Christmas. This is the day, tradition has it, when the three wise men brought gifts to the Christ child.

I just found out that in Ireland, Twelfth Day is sometimes celebrated as "Women’s Little Christmas." This is a day when, by custom, men do all the household chores while their wives and mothers and sisters take the day off. In County Cork, I read, the pubs are full of women while the men are home washing dishes and taking care of the kids.

I thought I knew a lot about Ireland. I guess I don’t. My dad never told me about Women’s Little Christmas. I guess my mother didn’t know about it either. I can’t imagine my father washing a dish while mom was out getting a pint of Guinness.

In fact, my dad didn’t much like Christmas. Maybe it was because his birthday was December 26. When I was a kid, I always thought that was a bum deal. But that’s not why he didn’t like Christmas. He didn’t like spending time or money on what he figured were frivolities. He didn’t walk around saying "Humbug" to everybody but he wasn’t exactly full of good cheer.

For years, after my parents built a motel not far from Tampa, our only Christmas tree was an aluminum number illuminated by a spotlight that flashed red and blue and green. It wasn’t even in our living room. It was in the motel office, behind the registration desk.

It was a terrible tree. But not long ago I learned those old, aluminum trees are rare and selling for hundreds or in some cases a thousand dollars or more. I asked my mom what happened to ours. "Oh, your father threw it away thirty years ago," she said.

I glad my dad didn’t live to find out he threw away a valuable antique. That might well have caused him to give up on Christmas all together.

Lynne and I are throwing our old, phony tree away today. It won’t stand straight. It’s worn out. Some of its branches are almost bare. She wants to get a real tree next year. I’ve thought about it and decided we should, if I’m celebrating Christmas. For one thing, it’s what Lynne wants. For another, I’d enjoy it.

I would like to smell a tree one more time. But I’m not going to tell Lynne about Women’s Little Christmas.

New Year

I saw my oncologist yesterday, the day before New Year’s Day. It seemed fitting, in light of the date, to ask him about my prognosis.

Strange as it may seem, this is only the second time since my diagnosis that my doctor and I have talked in any meaningful way about how long I might live or when I’ll die. I know he doesn’t like to be pinned down and, in fact, can’t legitimately talk about anything other than average survival rates for patients with stage three lung cancer.

To be honest, I’m not real crazy about knowing much more than that about my projected end.

I do know that I’ve already outlived my first prognosis which was – given the averages – that I’d last two years. I’m at two-and-a-half and counting. Not bad. But, given the date, as I said, and the start of a new year, I just had to ask. But I asked in a way to give him plenty of wiggle room.

"Do you think I’ll watch Notre Dame play next year?" I asked.

At first, he looked shocked. "Do you mean play for the national championship?" I guess he remembers that I once said that was what I wanted.

"No," I said, "just play another football game."

"Yes," he said, "you should live to watch them play next season. But I’m not sure they’ll win." I guess he’s a Boston College fan.

Anyway, by my lights, that prognosis is pretty good. So that’s my new target. To watch Notre Dame play again.

I just talked to my mom. She turned 92 yesterday. She’s a young 92, younger than I am at 63 going on 64. I told her about the prognosis and she pretended not to hear me. She does that. She uses her hearing loss as a short-cut to denial, and I’m not about to take that ability away from her.

We laughed about growing old. She told me that when I was a baby – adopted as a preemie after my biological mother died giving birth to me – I caught every baby illness in the books, but shook each one off quickly. "I pray every day you’ll do the same thing with the cancer," she said.

I do, too. I don’t think it will work. I don’t think I’m worthy of a miracle. I know that if I was in charge there are a lot of other people I’d expend my divine powers on before I got down to my name. But who knows? Maybe I’m wrong.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep looking forward to Notre Dame’s next game because I think that’s doable without miraculous intervention. And I’ll keep feeling grateful that I still have my mother to talk with and laugh with. I’m going to see the end of 2009. God willing, I’ll be able to wish mom another happy birthday.