I'd like to first say thank you to everyone here. Recently I wrote a diary on some statements by Ehud Barak, as well as other issues related to Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinians for freedom. However, I began the diary by relating to you all of the struggle of a friend of mine, one which has got me in one of the saddest and in many ways wonderful moments of my life. If you'd all not mind, I need to talk about this some more.
I just got one of my friend Joan's daughters to sleep. Her husband has the task of getting the 4 year old, A to sleep tonight, as she tends to cling to him, whereas the 9 month old Z was my job to get to sleep. In the past, I was able to lull her into sleep after a bottle, and then place her down on the bed, contented and in deep sleep. Or, when her mom was at home, she would breast feed her to sleep. But these days, mom isn't here, and the breast feeding is over, rather abruptly, so things have become a bit more touch and go. Tonight, she clung to me as I would try and place her on the bed, always waking up and crying (and she really is good at that!). So tonight, I developed a new technique. I lay down on the bed, and she would fall asleep on my chest. Then, I started to gradually shift her off of me, a bit at a time, until she is just lying on my arm, and then I gradually got that out from under her too, with Z becoming calm and sleeping gently.
I've known Joan for over 20 years. We were students together on a college year abroad program, and we studied together, ate, traveled, and shared all the fun and less than fun things about living abroad. Over the years, a number of us from the program kept in touch, and to this day they still form the core of my relationships, the people I know I can count on and that can count on me. Joan and I, however, lived in different places for most of the past years, her in the south and me in the Midwest and these days in the bay area. It was a few years ago that Joan moved out here, and we began to see more of each other, but still not regularly. She was busy with her family; her husband, her daughter A, and this past summer, her newest daughter Z, both beautiful kids with their parent's blue eyes.
It was in the fall, Joan asked some friends for help. She was having back pain, and also was taking care of both children, which even when one is healthy is no easy task. I had the time, so I started to come by and help. In the beginning, I really didn't know what to do. On the one hand, I knew Joan, and we had years of friendship to work with, and reconnect with, which was great. But the more I stayed, the more I figured, I better learn more than just how to play with the kids, so I started to ask Joan to show me what else I could do and learn. She showed me how to change diapers, how to make and feed the child a bottle, how to deal with meltdowns, how to read their crying and all their other forms of communication. When I started, I could, at best, keep Z distracted enough so she would not cry too much when her mom was gone for an hour or two. After a month or so, I was able to feed her dinner, make her a bottle, and get her settled enough to put her to sleep, sometimes for the whole night. And by now, when I come by, A runs over to me for a hug and Z, looks at me and smiles, wriggling from the arms of her parents to say hello to me.
By the time Thanksgiving came around, Joan was looking much better, her back pain subsiding, and her mood improving. That said, she was still fragile, and I was getting concerned that she was dealing with some depression in addition to the physical pain, but soon after the holiday I began a short temp job and saw a bit less of them. I tried to discuss my changing plans with A, as she is older and more sensitive to people's comings and goings, but the temp job didn't last very long, and I was right back in the childcare game.
Happy as I was to be able to spend more time with them and help out, I was also getting very concerned. Joan seemed to have taken a turn for the worse, with more pain and other symptoms surfacing, and the depression becoming increasingly pervasive. Things got so bad that there were times she would call me crying hysterically to come over and help her, as she was becoming less and less able to do the most basic things with and for her kids. Even picking up her youngest up was becoming something she just could not do, thus increasing her depression and desperation.
The holidays were rough, and they all went out of town for some time, but before one trip they took, she mentioned that her dentist saw something in her jaw on an x-ray, and told her that she should get it looked at asap, as they had no idea what it was. That frightened me, but she seemed to be blase about it, or maybe just too scared to confront the possibilities. I urged her, as gently but as firmly as I could, that she should get that looked at, as well as maybe give anti-depressant drugs another try. She got to her doctor, had one test, then another, then an MRI, then another, and before I knew it, she was admitted into the hospital for tests, CAT scans, biopsies, and more tests.
That was about 2-3 weeks ago. I had to stop writing this after that night of getting the kids asleep, but as I am at my place tonight, I wanted to finish this up. Last night I slept there, and looked after little Z; after feeding both kids dinner, I took Z to see her mother as she has begun chemotherapy this week, and is starting to feel the effects of the treatment, which is no fun at all. Joan has preemptively cut her own hair, and when I put her child in her arms, little Z reached out and grasped the short ends of her hair, remembering that mommy used to have long hair. Joan held her, and we both went from crying to laughing, smiling and sighing, from second to second. It was a short, sweet visit, and as hard as they are, they always move me.
Joan has been diagnosed with B cell lymphoma. It is stage 4, but this kind of cancer is usually never caught before that, as it is very quick to appear and hard to diagnose, so I am told. What her chances are, I cannot say. Lymphoma is treatable, and many live with it and survive. But this is about my friend, and no matter what I say or think, she has to live with it, and struggle with it. Unfortunately, she is still quite depressed, hell, who wouldn't be? Even though she has so much to live for with her kids and family, she has already been through so much pain, and there is much more in store, just in the treatment alone. I can wish her as much strength as possible, but she is the one that must bear it in the end.
A few weeks before the diagnosis, I came to the realization that as much as I can help, no matter what I do, I cannot save her. Her physical problems, her depression, these things in the end are out of my reach and out of my control; I would always try and cheer her up, thinking that just one more time that I help out and she'll turn a corner. But that corner never quite came. I was kind of stunned for a few days once I realized this, thinking that all my help was for naught. But later, I felt renewed by it. Knowing your limits makes you better appreciate what you can do, as opposed to feeling defeated by all the things beyond your control. I know I can be her friend, now and forever, and getting to know her kids is the latest and most wonderful part of the journey we began many years ago.
But this is also one of my fears, that the worst will happen, and her children will not have their mother around very much longer. I hope it doesn't happen, but I tend to seen the glass half empty at times, and its hard not to now. I think often of what I will say to them, especially little Z. She started to say 'mama' literally right around the time Joan went into the hospital; there she would sit in the morning in her high chair and look at me or her dad and say 'mama,' and in seconds I'd be stuck between laughing, smiling and weeping. She would also say it, but faster, in a moment of mild panic, at night when she realized she would usually be nursed to sleep. luckily, the bottle has been taken to well, hell she can even hold the darn thing herself these days. She just surprises me everyday with the things she learns to do; now she can sit up, almost crawl, pull her own shirt off (with a wee bit of help), and create some pretty impressive poo. The other morning, she crapped like I've never seen anyone or anything crap before, I mean mountains of the stuff! And then in the night, she puked all over the bed and the floor. And this is when she is NOT sick, ha!
What will I say to her, if the worst happens? I am an atheist, I don't believe in any afterlife, and I can't say what happens in the end. I would like to be able to console her, to tell her that she will know and meet her again someday, but I can't lie. I remember forming some sort of basic ideas like this as a kid when my grandfather died, which is odd, as I'm sure my parents did not say any such things. But there I was thinking I'd meet him again someday in heaven.
No, I will not lie. But I can tell Z of the friendship we shared, the people we knew and places we went, as I am sure many other people will. I can also tell Z, and A, that they do carry their mother within them. Watching her take care of them, I saw the love that Joan shares with them, the love that she taught them and passed on to them with every smile, embrace and tear. The love of their mother was, and will always stay with them, for the rest of their lives, for as long as they feel and yearn.
In the meantime, it is all I can do to help out however I can, waiting and hoping for the best.
Thank you all for letting me share this, and forgive me for whatever excesses are contained within, it's been a tough couple weeks, and I fear there will be tougher ones ahead.