“We are all in the gutter.  But some of us are looking at the stars.” – Oscar Wilde

 

What was I supposed to say?  

It was ten years and one month ago.  Lisa, a fellow homeschooler, had moved here with her daughter Sarah the summer before.  We had slowly become friends when she asked me if I could come down one afternoon.  She needed to talk to me about something. 

While our daughters scuttled upstairs to chat and play, she sat across from me at her kitchen table, dabbed at her eyes and shared her breast cancer diagnosis.

I drew my breath, closed my eyes briefly, then asked the universe for the right words.  

“You don’t have to die from this,” I finally said.

The words felt as though they came from someplace else, but I realized that I truly believed them. 

We didn’t know the extent of the cancer’s severity yet.  But I recognized that it didn’t really matter.  She could have a 90% chance of survival, a 50% chance of survival, or a 2 % chance of survival.  What mattered was that, if she wasn’t on her death bed, there was a chance of survival.  And if there is a chance of survival, there is a reason for hope.  And hope makes the days far more palatable than fear. 

And we just moved forward from there.  Eileen, another homeschool mom, joined me in breaking out our calendars and recording the dates for Lisa’s chemotherapy.  We each took turns taking days off and driving her in and sitting with her through her treatments.

We called them our “spa days.”  I’d pack chicken salad and kale salad and dark chocolate, and we’d bring in really expensive herbal teas to drink, then sit there with our knitting, chatting, just a couple friends enjoying a day together. When the chemo treatments finished, we celebrated by covering Lisa’s bald head with henna tattoos.

Two years ago, when Bob got his prostate cancer diagnosis and we were waiting for the results from his PET scan, Lisa showed up on my doorstep, a quiche in one hand, a book on cancer survival in the other.  We took a thermos of tea out to Rossman pond, watched the sun fade away, and we cried together, and she reminded me of my own words. 

“You know, you’ve said yourself.  He doesn’t have to die from this.”  And there I sat with my friend, remembering to be hopeful.

Lisa invited me to mark our cancer journeys last month, on the tenth anniversary of her diagnosis.  We spent the afternoon in Saratoga Springs.  We went out to lunch, we hung out at the local bookstore, selecting books for ourselves that we secretly wished our daughters would read — on spirituality, on the dangers of the digital era…We laughed at how they’re all grown with ideas of their own, and still we try to choose books to homeschool them. 

Then, for good luck and good health, we decided to walk around Congress park and taste all the different mineral waters from all the fountains, reading their history, analyzing the flavor profile of each, laughing that the fizz and gaseous smells would convince someone they had healing properties.  But we drank all of them, raising a cup from each fountain to health, to well-being, to friendship.

And two days later, my mom went into the hospital.  My day out with Lisa was swiftly blurred to a distant memory by sleepless nights and endless bouts of tears.  

Aware of what was happening, she texted to check in, and I remembered bits and pieces of that last day we had, honoring what we went through ten years ago.

Suddenly, it all seemed so innocent and naive.  

True, Lisa and Bob  didn’t have to die from cancer, but now I felt like I was on the cusp of losing my mother at too young an age.

Yet as our family moved through these recent weeks, that same message of hope was delivered to me countless times, from hospital staff who never seemed to give up, from our customers who filled our mailbox with get-well cards for mom, and from the friends who fed us at their tables, and who circulated in and out of the rehabilitation center, reminding Mom over and over that she has a place here, that she is loved.  She doesn’t have to die from this.  

Bit by bit, I witnessed the miraculous medicine of Mom’s friends, bringing her back from the oblivion of medications, seizures and strokes with a steady drip IV of jokes, stories, small talk and little gifts.  Each time one of them left her side, Mom was more and more herself.  

I was reminded of a story I saw back in April in The New York Times, A Peek Inside the Brains of Super-Agers, a review of the research on individuals who don’t demonstrate the typical cognitive decline of aging.  These people are over the age of 80, but have the memory of a person 20-30 years younger.  Scientists are finding that super-agers experience less atrophy of the brain than typical older adults, with more volume in the areas critical for memory, including the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex, along with better preserved connectivity between the front regions of the brain responsible for cognition.  These people did enjoy better blood pressure and glucose metabolism, but they didn’t ascribe to any special diet or physical activity, or get better sleep.  Some are even smokers.  There was only one consistent attribute among everyone in the group (aside from luck):  They all had strong social relationships (Smith, 2024). 

Mom is home now.  She has very little memory of what all transpired.  It creates confusion in her body.  She remembers none of the debilitating events, and thus struggles to understand why she can’t always find the word she seeks, why one leg lags behind the other, why she seems to have grown weak or confuses easily.  There are moments when she just surrenders to tears of sadness and frustration.

But I can see what she cannot.  I know how frightfully ill she was prior to all this; the frailty of her voice, her body, her lack of appetite, and I see the change as she’s able to eat the food Dad cooks for her.  Color has returned to her cheeks, a light is back in her eyes, and day by day words and memories find their way back.  Including remembering the names and face of people who, a little over a month ago, she could not.    I am slowly able to believe what the nurses and her friends have been trying to tell me.  She doesn’t have to die from this.  In fact, this could make her healthier and stronger.  The odds don’t matter — a 90% chance, a 50% chance, and a 1% chance are all a chance. 

And that chance lets me celebrate each step, take joy in her appetite, relish the sound of her voice.  

And, riding the wings of the optimism,   our family honors the opportunity to drink coffee and watch the sunrise, to wash eggs and talk about the farm, to eat Sunday dinner, or take a walk out to the barn, to marvel at the blooms of the summer flowers, to watch the sheep run to the next pasture, to watch the piglets play, to hold hands and hug. 

I don’t know what kind of time we have.  I don’t know what happens tomorrow or the next day or next year.  

But I do know that the universe is rife with possibilities.  My mom doesn’t have to die from this.   And none of this has to kill my spirit, either.  

I am back to enjoying my own life, which picks up with a meal back at Lisa’s kitchen table, where she pours sangria into my glass and spoons paella onto my plate while our daughters chat about their college classes and adventures.  We feast in a celebration of the here and now, the best hope there is… Because, even in our final days, there is always something more to learn, some way more to grow, and a deeper way to heal.  And, if we play our cards right,  there will always be friends to help us keep moving forward, to make sure, no matter what life throws at us, our spirits live on and on.

Smith, Dana G., A Peek Inside the Brains of “Super-Agers:” New Research explores why some octogenarians have exceptional memories.  The New York Times, April 29, 2024: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/well/mind/super-agers-study.html

 

 

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