There are moments in each of our lives where time seems to stand still and everything suddenly is upside down, off-kilter, as if viewed through a broken kaleidescope. I've had my share of these, and I'm smart enough to know that there will be others. I've discovered that I now belong to a club I didn't want to be a member of, and my mother has become a statistic. Cancer is the elephant in the living room for most of us - a topic that exists but must not be discussed because discussing it, facing it, dealing with it, is too difficult. Ignoring it, no matter how big or how obvious, is somehow easier. So dealing with the information received in a phone call, first from her four days before her surgery, then from some anonymous nurse on the other end of the beige phone in the waiting room, has been harrowing. Cancer no longer equals death, but it is still frightening. And I'm the strong one, the dependable one, the one who must have Vulcan blood in my veins because I don't believe in emotion or the display thereof. Showing emotion is for sissies, and crying is for girls. Ignore for a moment that I'm female, because I've spent my entire life trying to be one of the guys - I was raised to be a boy, damn it, and I'm not giving in now. To quote Hemingway, "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. "

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