Twists of Fate: Radiating friendship
October 1, 2009 by admin
Filed under Perspective, Twists of Fate
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I knit on these cooler evenings. The soft pink wool is slowly becoming a shawl. Although it has the feel of my children’s baby blankets, it holds a harsher reality.
Each stitch reminds me that it is a gift for my friend who is enduring the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and radiation. I’m told one of the side effects is the coldness that enters the body — a cold unforgiving illness. I call them her “healing sessions,” trying to soften the language as if to make a gentler journey.
For 16 years, we have met once a week for coffee — sipping in our shared stories of children, husbands, parents, births, deaths, divorce, bad days, good days, recipes and real estate. It was our lives, one hour each week. Until her sore throat. “The doctor said antibiotics should help.”
But they didn’t help, and then we were no longer talking about someone else’s cancer, but her own esophageal cancer. There is a set of symptoms that develop for friends of those with cancer. I’m scared, I don’t sleep well, I’m sad, I feel helpless, I’m angry, I worry about my own lymph nodes and freckles on my husbands back, but most of all I want to help so much that it aches inside.
Before she was nauseous every day, I baked pumpkin muffins and bought her Starbucks; I gave her sweet smelling cream and purple soft socks; I called and wrote e-mails, sent poems and prayed. But so often I feel cancer ties our hands, taunting us as we are cornered in powerlessness.
Her latest e-mail read, “Just wondering if by chance I could take you to breakfast and catch a ride to one of my many doctor’s appointments?”
Given she’d been so sick from her treatments, I hadn’t seen her as frequently and imagined the worst. But she looked beautiful. It was more than her pretty face and wisps of curly hair, though. There was clarity in her eyes, someone who knew what she wanted, and it was as simple as wanting to live.
The only sign of her painful truth was the blistery burns on her neck left by radiation. She gracefully unwrapped her scarf to let me in closer and admitted it had been excruciating, but she was slowly healing.
For now, because her throat was so sore, she spoke in a quiet laryngitis voice. I ordered our bagels in the noisy shop, relieved to show my care and concern in such a concrete way — handing her a small plastic knife and napkins, like I would for my children. We sat with our bagels and hot tea. She no longer drinks coffee but instead her tea, along with an 1/8 tablespoon of morphine so she can swallow small bites of bagel and cream cheese.
She patiently told me everything revealing her journey, like after returning from a frightful trip. I listened with a mixture of sadness, fascination and deep respect for her survival on the cancer trek. Halfway along the trail, she still has major surgery left to remove the tumor from her esophagus. Sometimes she’d write in pretty script on the pad next to her, when talking became too tiring.
“I’m never scared of dying, just scared of feeling sick forever.”
As she talked quietly and ate slowly, I too did the same. It felt so peaceful. We talked about how her cancer forced her to take care of herself in the way we did when we were pregnant: naps, gentleness, trying to eat well, depending on others. Birth and death are such powerful teachers.
Her doctor’s appointment was quick and her surgery is set for just three weeks away. We celebrated the definite date for an eight-hour surgery to rebuild her esophagus. We’ve celebrated many things in our friendship, but never esophageal surgery. I drove slowly home, not wanting our outing to end.
As I picked up my knitting that evening, I realized my shawl wasn’t so very different from a baby blanket. There is a tender feel to birth and death — both a powerful reminder of the beauty of life and friendship in between.
— By Priscilla Dann-Courtney, of Boulder
“Radiating Friendship” is expected to appear in Dann-Courtney’s collection of essays, “Room to Grow,” scheduled to be published by Norlights Press in November.
