THE CANCER
And then he woke up.
Great, another hairball. When you have a cat you take what is given, so to speak. Tell me are you puking or doing something totally disgusting? I would really like to know. Home was great this time. Warm and welcoming.
Awake again, another day of sitting, watching, wondering. Signals from the body, a pain, what was that? Is it meaningful? Suddenly a rush to do something, start something, get something done. Ah if only we could start. It always feels better to start. Consider the moments when you are at a crossroads, a decision. A new day.
In business the phone quit ringing. At home the child is 16, or leaving, or coming back. Crossroads. He sits pondering the next step. A cancer has invaded him, and he has known for a while. Ologists will enter his life. Fear of Ologists certainly must be a normal thing. Men dread the urologist and proctologist. Women search for the right gynecologist. The blind seek ophthalmologists and nobody wants a cardiologist or neurologist about. Often Ologists are bell weathers of hard times. Ologists, we have to have them, but generally not for the good things in life. I ponder this and consider other paths to take. What can it matter now, after all these years of taking the easy way, the natural way? Why then the yearning for something unnatural. Why desire to do what you can’t, what you must work at to accomplish? What the hell drives that? I don’t know.
But dreaming of the future never allows complete escape from the present. The tumor he feared he had there. What a difference a week makes. Watching Peyton get out played because he got shit mind early was a happy day. The sad loss became just another event in a day of Family and love. At 3:30 pm the next day I would be in excruciating pain with a garden hose stuck up ol’ one eye that my body was decidedly rejecting without regard to the discomfort it was laying on my soul. Carl Anderson on the turntable as I write this. Cancer, Dad said we all get it if we live long enough. He didn’t.
Yet I did know something in my body chemistry changed. I think I told Vanessa, and maybe discussed it as a matter of conversation with other friends. Smoking was a joy for me and a curse as well. From my first cigarette at 12, to a full blown smoker at 15, and then 40 years or so, I enjoyed all except the last few. With my weight up and breathing capacity down, I was stressed in 07. The fall was upon us and we looked forward to taking a road trip. Just get in the car and drive. At 3:10PM September 16, 2007 I stood in the men’s room, looking at the crumpled pack of Camel Lights, three left that lay in the top of the tool box where I had tossed that morning. I hadn’t smoked much that day, an autumn sun that warmed me through and the many things I had going at once made the day go by fast. Lighting one up I gazed across the yard to the field beyond, pondering how the view has not changed as the price of these coffin nails quadrupled. I had planned to smoke on and go into town to get a few packs for the trip, but as in drew deep I decided I could just do without this trip. I knew for sure it would be a breeze, because the urge simply was not there. A chemical reaction has effected my brain in some fashion. Somewhere, far in the back of my mind the thought formed, and perhaps that was my first warning sign.
It wasn’t the first time. Long ago cigarettes had been banned in the house proper to outside venues and of course the men’s room. I certainly was not going to smoke in the car with Vanessa. Beyond being extraordinarily inconsiderate of a non smoker, the car was not set up for a smoker, lacking lighter, ash tray and aerodynamics that assured a butt tossed out the cracked window would indeed go out, and not drop back in to pock the back seat or set the carpet on fire. So to decide I would not smoke for a few days was not daunting or a particular challenge.
I don’t want anyone praying for a miracle. I am in the hands of God, The One, Allah or whatever your particular spiritual father is called. I am part of the process. Charts are drawn, we do it sixty thousand times a year and four out of five work out OK. No amount of prayer can change the course; I am off the track, headed for the garage for some major modifications. Pray for and support my dear Vanessa and Jennifer and Jocelyn, and pray for those who must directly support them. Their course is not yet drawn through this process. I shall endeavor to minimize my load physically and emotionally upon them, and would never venture a word about how they cope with husband and father in such dire circumstance. In that regard, should my deeply evangelical Vanessa wish to hold vigils, bible studies, prayer meetings or what ever I would hope her Church would step up to the plate, and feel assured they will. Just do not ask me to participate nor, I pray, do not judge my absence as a lapse of faith. It is rather a desire to be private, to not burden others who have quite enough to worry about on their own, and the need to protect my Ladies, who are my primary support and upon whom I heavily rely.
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