Chapter 2: Part 2

continued from chapter 2; part1

At first we behaved like two people out of a heart-wrenching drama.
We said, “I love you,” twenty times a day and if one us took a trip to the corner store, the farewells were bloody dramatic. You can’t keep this up—you’ll wear yourselves out with raw emotion.

We were kind to one another. We automatically gravitated away from negative people although there were few of those. We were automatically taking those first steps without being aware.

Our first objective was for Hal to gain weight and to heal the nine-inch incision. He had a worrisome setback when he developed a knotted pain behind his right shoulder blade, but it eased with the help of Tylenol, and we attributed the pain to a muscle spasm. Later we learned this is a side effect of the liver damage.

While Hal was gaining back his strength, we settled back into our old ways. In the past I had often joked to friends that although neither of us was retired, I could write a book on preparation for the event. We both lived and worked in our house, and still managed to have something to say to one another in the evening. We managed this by having our offices on separate floors and conversation occurred only when I came down to the bathroom beside his study or when one us received a phone call with too-good-to-save news. At noon, we stopped for a one-hour lunch on trays in the living room and then we usually watched part of a pre-taped movie on television and saved the conversation for the evening.

Hal’s appetite returned and I made milkshakes with ice cream, milk, fresh fruit, eggs and anything else I thought might put on pounds. When we went out on Saturday errands, he was less protective about his incision, and stopped holding his hands combatively in front of him, like retired fighter who had taken one hit too many.

We fell further back into other old routines. He was the breakfast maker and I was the lunch and dinner maker; we had shared these tasks when I held down a full-time job and we kept the chores when I quit to stay home and write.

Still there was this presence in our house. Hal had recently undergone a shocking trauma, and here we were, tiptoeing into life pretending what happened was behind us forever.

A major obstacle to clear out of the way was to learn to use the word CANCER It was a tough thing to do. It’s not difficult when you’re talking about someone you hardly know, but when it suddenly becomes a personal thing it’s like having to speak civilly to a rude stranger. At the moment this word was commanding our lives. We hadn’t said the word for the first few days after the surgery and then, almost in unison, we said it out loud.
“It’s cancer.”

to be continued in chapter 2: part 3