From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Since the
chemotherapy ended a couple of years ago, we don’t talk about cancer any more.
Sometimes that’s
strange; sometimes it’s an attempt to, not exactly pretend, but block out parts
of those years. Like when I see the Christmas picture the family took that
year, I see many things that were different – my daughter-in-law is pregnant
with our SECOND grandchild.
Dad doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.
Mom is alive.
My great-niece
hasn’t been born yet.
My nephew, my niece,
and my daughter are all still unmarried.
Everyone is
smaller.
Mom and Dad are in
the center and the rest of us are gathered around them…
And then there’s
my wife. She has no hair. She’s standing just a few months post-chemotherapy.
So much has
changed that a little thing like breast cancer shrinks to “just one more thing”.
It sounds like it should be a huge part of our lives forever and while it IS,
it’s no longer the monster it seemed back then. Of course there are shadows of “recurrence”.
Of course there are consequences for fighting back against so horrible a disease.
But, I have a
strange feeling this is exactly as it should be. Once beaten, we SHOULD bury
the demon; or cast it back into its fiery Hell to burn with the rest of the trash
that gathers around lives both lived well and lived badly. But maybe she SHOULD
forget. My daughter and I both shake our heads when my wife says, “I just don’t
remember that much from that whole time.”
My daughter and I
look at each other and one of us says, “We do.” Because it’s true. We remember
every treatment, every suction bag draining, every bandage change, every tear
shed, every moment of hopeless horror, every bag of Red Devil poison pumped into
her bloodstream targeting the fastest growing cells in the body – which is why hair
growth cells (follicles) died along with the cancer cells. We remember it; and
are thankful that my wife DOESN’T.
It’s something
that should stay forgotten, and if I have unexpected flashbacks, that’s OK so
long as the cancer stays beaten and my wife continues to enjoy her job, our kids,
kids-in-law, foster kids, grandkids, and old friends. Puzzles are a joy again rather
than a distraction from pain; food is fun rather than a chore.
It’s OK to forget
some things. I look forward to the day that this is all so long past that it’s
barely a bad memory.
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