Soda Bread

I’ve been part of a writers’ critique group for a dozen years or more. There are half-dozen of us, give or take one or two, depending on our schedules. We meet once a month, always at someone’s home, and read and critique some of our recent work.

Sometimes it’s not a lot of fun to be part of a group like this. Egos can clash. Feelings can be hurt. If, as sometimes happens, you’re forced to sit and listen to really terrible writing at every meeting, violence may ensue.

I’m lucky. The group I’m in is comprised of writers who’ve already published or who deserve publication. We’re good for each other.

I haven’t been able to attend every meeting over the last year or so. Sometimes chemo has gotten in the way and sometimes I just haven’t been up to it. But these friends have steadily let me know of their love, with phone calls and e-mails.

I went to a critique group meeting yesterday. There were only a few of us there: Sylvia and Linda and Donna and Peter and me. I was asked to read first. So I did. A couple of sections of the memoir I’m working on. And then we talked. Sylvia told me how much she’d learned about me by reading this blog and by hearing parts of my story. Donna and Linda and Peter agreed. They told me they were happy I was finally opening myself up a bit.

I know I’ve spent most of my life not disclosing anything real about myself. Some of that is cultural. Irish men aren’t known for sober displays of emotionalism. It’s easier to hide behind a façade of toughness or to tell a joke or sing a song or just act as if it – whatever it is – doesn’t really matter.

Some of it is because there’s some stuff that’s always been too painful or embarrasing.

But I realized as we talked yesterday that I was glad I’d found a way to open up. This is new for me, but it’s okay. It’s not so bad having people know how I feel, that I’m afraid or sad or happy or whatever. As important as these people – Sylvia and Peter and Donna and Linda – have been to me they’re more important now.

We snack at these meetings. Yesterday, there was cheese and fruit and crackers. Since it was Linda’s birthday, there was a cake. And before I left, Sylvia gave me three small loaves of Irish soda bread.

I’d never eaten soda bread until I met Sylvia, who’s from Ireland. My mother didn’t bake much. Only an infrequent pie or one of her noteworthy cakes that always seemed to be listing slightly to port or starboard after they were iced. She didn’t bake bread because that wasn’t something one did with one’s rare leisure time. When she was a girl, baking bread was a time-consuming and necessary chore. Buying bread already sliced from a bakery was, for her, the beginning of women’s liberation.

Anyway, I’m not used to soda bread, but I love it. Served with what the Irish call a thick "lashing" of butter it’s good enough to make me close my eyes. I had some this morning for breakfast. And as I ate it, I thought of the group and of how lucky I am to have these friends and of how it’s really okay with me that they know more about me than they used to.

Dying Ain't Fun

I just finished reading Art Buchwald’s book, "Too Soon to Say Goodbye," written, much of it, while he was in a hospice in Washington.

Buchwald was lucky. In early 2006 he went in the hospice expecting to die from kidney failure. By his own admission, he figured he had about three weeks to live. Instead, his kidneys somehow got better. In June of that year he left the hospice for his summer home on Martha’s Vineyard. He lived, finally, until January 17, 2007.

Buchwald was comfortable with the idea of his death. He had the opportunity to undergo kidney dialysis and, instead, decided to die with dignity. As it worked out, he lived longer than anybody expected and had a great time in the hospice. He was visited by family and friends and by politicians and newsmen and people he’d never met. He ate what he wanted to eat. He was awarded the French equivalent of the Legion of Honor for his writing. He was spoiled.

"I never realized dying could be so much fun," he wrote.

You know, Buchwald was right, but only part right.

Of course, being sick isn’t a lot of fun. And not everybody has the chance to make going gentle into that good night a protracted visit with loved ones. Pain is pain, no matter what your outlook.

But still….

What made Buchwald’s end so much fun was his decision that, no matter how much time he had left, he was going to focus all his energies on living his life to the fullest. I know that reads as cloyingly maudlin as a bad greeting card but I can’t think of a better way to write it.

It isn’t always easy to do that, to focus on today rather than tomorrow or the month after this one or on the coffin that waits. But it’s the only way to make today worth living, isn’t it? It’s the only way – to steal again from Dylan Thomas – to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

In a way, when I allow that to happen, when I allow myself that focus, it does work to make today sweeter than any day in the past. It infuses the day with excitement, with light. In those moments, Buchwald is right. Dying is fun.

I saw my VA therapist today, a smart, gentle woman named Linda Vesley. "Do you think about death every day?" she wondered.

I told her I did, not because I wanted to but because it’s always lurking right below the surface, waiting. All it takes is someone asking how I am or the mention of cancer on the news or any other reminder that I have this disease and there I go again, thinking about death.

When that happens, and it happens frequently, it takes at least a few minutes to get my focus back. And when that happens, Buchwald is wrong. Dying ain’t fun at all.

Birthday Party

Early yesterday, I had to go to the VA for a cat scan. I was afraid, this time. I’m usually not but the last one I had showed my main tumor had grown a bit. This time, I fear, the news will be worse and then it’ll be time for chemo again. That's if I’m lucky.

Before the scan, I had to drink some barium. The last time I had one I drank banana-flavored barium. It didn’t taste too bad. This time, just to be different, I tried vanilla flavored. It wasn’t as good. Usually, the barium doesn’t bother me but yesterday, for some reason, it made me nauseous. Maybe because I was afraid.

After I came home, my wife – Lynne – and I celebrated her birthday. She loves presents as much as a little girl. When she opens a gift, her whole face lights up. Sometimes she giggles.
Buying her a present is always fun, always a pleasure, because I know how happy she’ll be, no matter what the gift.

Yesterday, she got clothes, a couple of necklaces, and a jazz CD from her sister, Jennifer, who lives in Richmond. I gave her a purse and a hat and dress she’d picked out. Her father gave her a check. She used a little of that money to buy herself a pair of shoes. I don’t think a man would be very happy if he got a pair of shoes as a gift. I guess that’s because to most men buying shoes is like buying tires for a car. More necessary than pleasurable. Lynne, however, loves shoes the way I love sailing.

I gave her three cards: two funny ones including a card with a picture of a monkey inside. For some reason, she loves monkey-pictures as much as shoes. The third card was mushy. It talked about love and how happy she’s made me and then said something about how I hoped we’d have a hundred more birthdays together.

When she read that card, she cried, just a little, but enough to let me know she cared.

After my nap, we went out for a late lunch in honor of the day. We didn’t go to a fancy place, just a seafood restaurant we both enjoy.

I couldn’t help myself. I kept looking at Lynne all during the meal. Every time I looked, she was smiling, her eyes were bright and she was beautiful. Happiness is like that. It’s attractive.
We ate fresh fish and then Lynne ordered chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, a special birthday treat. Again, she was happy.

During the meal, while we ate and she got chocolate sauce on her chin, we didn’t talk about the cancer, or the cat scan, or the fact that I was still nauseous from the barium. We didn’t talk about the truth that – despite what the mushy card said – we weren’t going to have a whole lot of birthdays together.

I’m glad we didn’t talk about that stuff. It was nice to be free of the cancer for a bit, to take a break, to have lunch with my wife and see her smile.

Heaven or Hell

When I was a child going to Catholic grade school in Chicago, I knew with certainty that I’d be headed for what we called "the bad place" as soon as I died. My sins were legion and unspeakable.

Now, I’m not so sure.

First, I’m not sure there’s a heaven that’s anything like the one I learned about from the nuns at Our Lady of Peace School. There’s not a place where I’d be given a seat on some cloud and a little harp and told to enjoy myself for eternity. Obviously enough, if there's no heaven with little harps then there's no hell with pitchforks.

That’s a relief.

The Catholic Church taught that as soon as I died I would go through "particular judgment." As a sinner, I stood no chance. My body would be buried and my soul sent on to hell. Later, at the end time, my body would rise to be reunited with my soul for the "last judgment."

My fevered little mind developed the terrible belief that on judgment day I’d hop out of my grave and join a huge crowd gathered in a place akin to the world’s largest drive-in movie, only without cars. There, all the people who ever lived would be gathered, souls reunited with bodies, watching films. Each film would show all the good and bad ever done by one individual.

I hated the idea of my mother and father and friends knowing about all my sins. About all the nickels I filched from my mother’s purse. About my lies. What I really did when I was supposed to be taking a shower.

I’m glad I don’t believe that any more. That belief has been replaced by uncertainty. I just don’t know, any more than anybody else, what ultimately awaits.

I like to think, though, that no matter what heaven and hell are like, I’ve paid for my sins already. I’ve been a pretty decent guy for the last dozen years or so and I was never, not even at my worst, bad enough to be forced to spend eternity in hell.

I think maybe God really is a "higher power," some sort of beneficent, loving, tolerant force that put everything in motion and that when I die I’ll simply return to become part of that power.

That sounds good.

I have an old, tiny photograph taken when I was about four years old. In the photo, my father and I are walking down a beach, away the photographer, undoubtedly my mother. My dad and i are holding hands. I remember the bathing suit he used to wear. It was beige, decorated with green palm trees and orange flamingos. I remember the way he’d hold my hand, gentle in his big workingman’s hand. And I remember how safe and serene I felt in those moments.

I think that’s where I’ll be after I die. Not on that beach but in that feeling.

I hope so.

I heard somebody I met in the sober fellowship I'm in say that when he died he hoped he "would go to that big meeting in the sky."

Not me. I'll pass on that. I’d rather go to that big package store in the sky.

If not that, walking on the beach with my old man will suffice.

The View

My wife and I are fortunate. We live in an apartment overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon, in Florida. The lagoon is part of the Intracoastal Waterway on Florida’s east coast. When we look out the sliding-glass door that serves as the eastern wall of our living room, we can see the lagoon and beyond that the barrier island just south of Palm Beach. By straining just a bit we can see, beyond that narrow island, the vast sweep of the Atlantic Ocean.

People travel hundreds, often thousands of miles and spend a lot of money to see the view we can see every day of the year. The few visitors we have always, or almost always, stop to look out the window, remark about the beautiful view.

I’m spoiled.

I’m so accustomed to the view that days or weeks go by without my looking out the window. I walk across the living room with my eyes open but unseeing. In the three years we’ve had this apartment I’ve only sat on the balcony outside that sliding glass door, looking to the east, a half-dozen times, no more than that.

That’s a shame.

Before I got sick, I used to be too busy. For months and months I was too busy to look out the window. I sat at a computer day after day writing an average of 2,000 words each day. A million words every 18 months, give or take 100,000 words or so.

Now I can barely stand to work more than a couple of hours at a time. I’m just too tired. And still I have to remind myself to look out the window.

This morning, when I took the time to look I saw an osprey soaring right at the level of our sixth-floor apartment.

I’m going to look more often. I promised myself. Why not? I can’t work so I may as well enjoy myself.

Cranky

I’m cranky right now. My nose is bleeding. I’m sitting at my computer with a wad of toilet tissue stuck up my right nostril in the hope that blood won’t get all over my penultimate, or second to last, clean tee-shirt. (I don’t wear a shirt when I’m working. Sometimes I don’t even wear pants. I work alone so it’s okay. I say that knowing it’s an image that may, if you have ever seen me, make you cranky or make your nose bleed.)

I know I’m supposed to look on the bright side. I also know a nose-bleed is not a real big deal in this world of ours. Still. I’m cranky.

Than I remember that if I really wanted to do something about my nosebleed, all I would have to do is call the veterans hospital where I get my care and a nurse or doctor would either tell me what to do or tell me to get into the emergency room.

That made me think how lucky I am. I guess I mean that even with a nosebleed and cancer I can see the bright side.

I didn’t much like being in the air force almost 50 years ago. I thought I would when I saw the television commercials showing jet aircraft screaming across the sky and happy men and women – they were on leave, I guess – standing in front of the Louvre or a pyramid. I never got to fly a jet and by the time I got to Japan, my overseas posting, I was already itching to get back to civilian life.

When I got cancer and contacted the VA, nobody ever asked me if I liked being a serviceman. I’m lucky they didn’t. Nobody asked if my cancer was somehow service related. I’m lucky there, too. I told them only service-related injury I suffered was a cracked noggin when I fell off a bar stool in Tokyo or maybe Yokohama.

Come to think of it, the people at the VA hospital didn’t ask me much at all. Instead, they told me they’d take care of me. That was good news. If my treatment depended on the level of my happiness when I was in the service, I’d be dead already.

Two courses of chemo, surgery for a blocked artery, hospitalization four times in two years, psychological help to deal with the disease, and on and on. When I say I’d be dead without the VA, I’m not overstating the case. I would be, no doubt.

All in all, it seems I got a good deal for my four not-so-happy years in uniform, even if I never did get to fly a jet.

And as I’ve been thinking about all this, and counting my blessings, my nose stopped bleeding.

The taste of a date

Years ago, I had what could be called "a bit of a problem" with alcohol. It could also be called a "big, big problem." The problem was that I wanted to drink every day and once I started drinking I just couldn’t stop. It cost me a lot over the years in terms of losses I needn’t and shouldn’t go into here. What’s important is the fact that about 13 years ago, with the help of a fellowship of sober drunks, I finally got it. I quit. And I haven’t had a drink since then.

More than once since I was diagnosed with lung cancer, a friend or acquaintance has asked how I’ve been able not to drink in the face of this disease. It’s funny. The idea of drinking hasn’t even entered my mind…at least not as a serious possibility.

Why on earth would I want to make the time I have left miserable? Even if misery wasn’t guaranteed, why on earth would I want to make my days muddy and distorted by alcohol?

This morning, I went to the grocery store. I go almost every morning to get something Lynne and I have decided we need. Little Debbie cakes spring immediately to mind. Or flowers. I know the experts say that’s the wrong way to shop for food. I know going shopping every day means I’ll make more impulse purchases than I should. I don’t care.

This morning when I was shopping I got a couple of pounds of coffee, on sale. I grabbed a box of generic imitation sweetener for my wife and a loaf of fresh Cuban bread. I bought some Irish butter. It’s so creamy it’s worth the extra money.

After I put the butter in my cart, I walked through the produce section. In an open refrigerator display I saw little plastic boxes of strawberries, blueberries, even sliced mango and apple slices with caramel sauce for dipping.I’ve eaten all those things. My mother used to make the best caramel apples in the world, I think. And strawberry shortcake.

Suddenly, I saw a display of ripe dates. Now, I’ve never tasted a date. I don’t know why. As a consequence, in my mind dates are shrouded in mystery. Perhaps because they sound Biblical. Though dates are not mentioned by name in the Bible, I think Noah carried a couple of date palms, probably in his cabin on the Ark. He and his wife ate dates late at night while the rain fell and fell.

Anyway, this morning I decided I wanted to eat a date. I wanted to eat a date simply because I’d never eaten one before. So, with the connivance of a supermarket employee who has seen me every morning in the produce department, I did. She slipped me a date. And it was wonderful. Kind of like an apple made out of honey.

I’m glad I ate it.

If I’d been drinking, I wouldn’t have been in the grocery store. Hell, if I’d been drinking I wouldn't still be married. And I never would have the chance to taste a date.It sounds silly doesn’t it? Tasting that date is what makes it easy for me not to end my life in a bottle.