The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well

That, for all they care, I can go to hell,

But on earth indifference is the least

We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

If equal affection cannot be,

Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am

Of stars that do not give a damn,

I cannot, now I see them, say

I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime,

Though this might take me a little time.

- W.H. Auden

Telling Mum

Without a doubt, what I feared most, more than the surgery - much, much more than the chemotherapy, was telling my mum. I was petrified of watching her react and perhaps tumble before me. She has always suffered from what seems to me, an exaggerated and unnatural concern for everything. The smallest matter always leads to untold trauma. And, unfortunately for me, her children have always been her prime reason for worry. Her heart is astonishing; full to the brim with goodness and strong with unbridled generosity, yet fragile as a house of cards.

The word cancer does not sit well with my family. Ok, no surprises there. Like a lot of families, cancer has been an unkind and unwelcome visitor; only 2 years ago, taking the life of my beloved first cousin - a young mum with a true zest for life and sunshine in her step.

So to actually have to verbalise the true "C word" again - but this time, in relation to me and my health, seemed an insurmountable hurdle and something which I believed could do actual physical harm to my parents, particularly mum.

Flippant as it may sound, I felt the doctors had everything else under control, and that the marvels of modern medicine would work in my favour restoring my health anew. But the act of telling my mother, that was a far greater predicament.

I decided the first step was to tell my brother. He would at least provide me with the support I needed when it came to conveying this horrible information to my parents. Together we worked a plan, the best possible way to deliver the worst possible news.

On Friday, 6th of May, I went to my parent’s home for dinner. Trembling on the inside, I tried to keep myself composed. I looked into the face of my mother, her expression blithe, knowing I was moments away from destroying her calm.

She suspected nothing, how could she. I visit my parents like clockwork, once a week for dinner. It’s a casual scene, the four of us sitting around the large occasional table in front of the television in a comfortable room with bay windows. My parents ‘live’ in this room; it almost seems a waste of this beautifully expansive, century old apartment. But this is what we do. This is where we meet. This is where we share our news, and this is where we eat.

I decided we should have our dinner first. Let everybody enjoy their food before taking their appetites away. Not that that's much of a concern anymore for my parents who for a few years now, have taken to eating like sparrows.

The room is softly lit by four small lamps and through the white wooden shutters, just a glimpse of a large palm tree can be seen outside. The room is always warm but this night, I struggled to get comfortable. My brother, Peter was looking anxious and his deliberate raising of eyebrows was beginning to bother me. Finally with the plates cleared, mum, dad and Peter settled in their chairs, I knew it was time to speak. The television volume is always up high, mainly for my dad, so it was an ominous sign when I grabbed the remote and lowered the volume.

“I’ve got some news...”.

My mother’s face lost all colour and I knew I had just stepped off the ledge. The next three hours were exhausting. There were tears, there were a thousand questions, there was disbelief, and there was, for me, relief. I had told my parents the prognosis was good. Excellent, in fact. The doctors had told me that they’d caught my cancer early, a routine bowel cancer operation, some chemotherapy and I would be totally back to new. When the tears had dried, the shock had subsided, I said my goodnights and headed home. Unbelievably, I felt totally refreshed; a burden of unmeasurable magnitude had been lifted and I was smiling as I drove the 5 minutes back to my apartment.

Two weeks had passed and here I was, having just shared the news with my parents, staring out my window and craving a cigarette so badly, I almost lit one. But then something odd happened.

I fell to pieces.

A good cancer

I walked with no discernible legs. Grateful that I was within stumbling distance of home, with shoulders back, eyes ahead I attempted to appear normal; the man with the giant, cancerous stick up his arse was struggling past a hundred oblivious neighbours. Sipping coffee, laughing into mobile phones, feeding meters, kissing cheeks, walking dogs, these are the people in my hell. This is my nightmare, get out of my way!

Back in the apartment, I waited for my head to reconnect with my spinal cord. As my surroundings began to take shape, gradually, a far more frightening dilemma emerged; my mother. The thought of breaking this news to her was far worse than the news itself. A constant and ridiculous worrier, my mother was one to make a sniffle into pneumonia and a headache, a tumour. To actually have to tell her that I had a tumour, was something which I never really believed I would ever need to do. She had to know, sure. But buggered if I knew the right way to go about telling her. And as a woman in her seventies, I was also sincerely concerned about the impact this news would have on her mind, body and soul.

The doctor who performed my colonoscopy (his name I've chosen to forget) had told me that most people recover completely without any loss of longevity and furthermore, that if you are going to have cancer, bowel cancer is a good one to get. Truly. Although he was almost certain of his diagnosis, the results would not be official for another seven days. I decided to wait until that time before telling my family. When the results come back, one way or the other, the prognosis itself would create the catalyst for moving forward. I eventually realise that I am breathing again, the room has slowed down, my heart rate is back in double figures and I may even be able to sleep.

Predictably, the next seven days go by like seven weeks. ‘Results Day’; and my doctor is not wearing the warm, comforting face I’d envisaged and my heart rate increases. ‘Michael, please come in’. He looks dour. He looks sorry.

‘Please sit down’. Is he pausing for dramatic effect? ‘Tell me Michael, are you married?’.

‘No’, I mutter.

‘Do you have kids?’ he asks.

A barely audible ‘no’ leaks from my lips and I wait for the worst.

He lets out what seems to be a ‘small mercies’ sigh of relief, and I am wondering if I have 6 weeks, 6 months or if I’ll see Christmas? He pulls his shoulders back and grittily announces that his initial prognosis was correct, it is cancer.

‘And...?’ I ask.

‘That’s it. Just like we spoke about’, he smiles and rubs my knee.

It took every fibre of my being not to leap across that desk and strangle that smug son-of-a-bitch. This ‘doctor’ who had remarkably had his ‘bedside manner’ surgically removed sometime during med school was now serving me copious quantities of his churlishness.

So now I knew. Next step, ‘Operation: Tell The Folks’.

Nothing for me to do

When I was thirteen I ran straight through a plate-glass door. I have a scar down the side of my nose to prove it. Fourteen neat little stitches and a newly acquired ruggedness from that day forward. At least, that’s what my mother told me. I ran down a long hallway, swerved past the lounge, hurdled the coffee table and was halted, in mid-air, by a very large, very clean glass sliding door. Bam!

The world suddenly stopped. I was frozen, lying among a million diamonds of razor sharp glass. The most significant injury was one long shard protruding from my nose. As anxious friends and family gathered around, I felt a sense of bravery, for although I was indeed hurt, the pain was defused by the shock. I stared at the sky above and let out small giggles.

The overwhelming memory that has stayed with me from that day was the serene comfort and calmness that washed over me. Once placed on the ambulance gurney, those men in white coats dedicated every shred of their being to my wellbeing. At the hospital, as I lay on that gurney swaddled in crisp white linen, I glanced back and forth at the myriad of hospital staff fussing around me and felt indestructible, immortal and completely protected from everything bad in the world.

My role in this whole episode was to lie there, and simply be treated and repaired. There was nowhere I had to be. Nothing for me to do. Just lie there and be looked after. Now sleep. Hmmm.

At 48 years of age, the nose scar fading, I found myself once more under the protection of those wonderful angels in white. And while for some, hospital is a scary place, full of horrible possibilities, for me, and with limited experiences therein, it has always been a haven. Within these walls, away from the ghastly world outside, and with every known remedy for every possible condition close at hand, I have always felt totally safe. That was until the doctor leaned over me, roused me from my anaesthetic and said ‘I’m sorry, I have some bad news. You have cancer.’

My stomach fell away taking every last drop of oxygen with it. The light above my head was spinning dangerously, the air in the room sucked away and the doctor’s face blurred into some grotesque caricature. I couldn’t respond. I was free-falling, nothing to hold onto, nothing to save me. ‘I’m very sorry’ he said.

Reality has slapped me hard every day since, and now, almost halfway through my chemotherapy treatment, I realise my boyhood beliefs, although once comforting, were fanciful. And though I still maintain a healthy respect for hospitals and know miracles can happen, they do not always happen, and between those times it’s just called ‘life’.

Happiness, sadness, joy, grief, hope, charity, pain, heartache, illness, laughter, anguish, love, fear, death and life.