I was thirteen when I found out she had cancer. Amazing, how it was 19 years ago, and I still recall so vividly where I was standing when my mother told me. It was, in a way, similar to the stories we hear of when John F. Kennedy was assassinated...everyone remembers minute details normally forgotten by day's end.
My grandmother was what I consider to this day to be the quintessential grandparent. She bought us new coloring books for each visit, fed us ice cream past bedtime, and nestled us in her bosom when we needed comfort. Her house always smelled like food, whether it was stew or spaghetti, and my grandpa always smelled like smoke. He was a volunteer firefighter, and would often come home at night to kiss us, enveloped in a smoky heroism I relished. They lived in probably a mere 1200 square feet, but as a child, it was a palace, with its patterned carpet, and cushy la-Z-boys. When we spent the night, she made sure to use the sheets bought specifically for me, white with pink roses and a ruffle along the top sheet.
Finding out she had cancer was a devastation, but despite the somber adults, I was convinced she would come through it. And she almost did. But when they thought they had it beaten, after it had spread from breast to lung, it suddenly cropped up in her brain, and it was too late. Every day, after school, my sister, my mother and I would drive to the hospital, and watch her be slowly erased. Thanksgiving, and then christmas were spent in the hospice unit at Samaritan Hospital, the very hospital whose doors I would exit carrying my twins more than a decade later.
A week before she died, my grandfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the cycle continued. Within a year, I lost my grandparents, my parents were separated, and my high school sweetheart and I parted ways. I felt a desolation that to this day has not been replicated. Nights were long and horrific, as I fought off nightmares that would cause Wes Craven to cringe. School became a chore, and maintaining relationships and friendships was exhausting and emotional.
My father was told almost five years ago during a colonoscopy that he, too, was now to be forever known as a cancer victim, a cancer fighter, and ultimately- a cancer survivor. He sported a port in his heart where chemo would be injected, and a brazen scar across his abdomen from surgery. Last year, during Relay for Life, he marched with my kids, and it took everything I had to not sob aloud while I walked.
I have my first colonoscopy tomorrow. Today has been a day of fasting, and laxatives and terrible cherry drinks, but more importantly, a day of reflection. I am certain my results will be much more benign than those treasured family members before me, but I cannot help but think of them tonight (as I do often). I am always certain, when Stevie Wonder croons from my car radio, that my grandmother, ever the same age, is seated next to me. When I pass a fire, whether barbecue or brush, I see a fleeting, tall man who resembles my grandfather, ever the quiet hero. And when I see my dad playing in Indian Lake with my children, his scar proudly on display, as a badge of courage, I say a word of thanks- to whom I do not know.
It is brief, this life, briefer still for too many. I will go to my procedure tomorrow, and will come back home to give hugs that last a bit longer than usual, and when I am told good news, I will close my eyes and suspend my disbelief in the spiritual for a moment, to thank my grandparents, my guardian angels.
My grandmother was what I consider to this day to be the quintessential grandparent. She bought us new coloring books for each visit, fed us ice cream past bedtime, and nestled us in her bosom when we needed comfort. Her house always smelled like food, whether it was stew or spaghetti, and my grandpa always smelled like smoke. He was a volunteer firefighter, and would often come home at night to kiss us, enveloped in a smoky heroism I relished. They lived in probably a mere 1200 square feet, but as a child, it was a palace, with its patterned carpet, and cushy la-Z-boys. When we spent the night, she made sure to use the sheets bought specifically for me, white with pink roses and a ruffle along the top sheet.
Finding out she had cancer was a devastation, but despite the somber adults, I was convinced she would come through it. And she almost did. But when they thought they had it beaten, after it had spread from breast to lung, it suddenly cropped up in her brain, and it was too late. Every day, after school, my sister, my mother and I would drive to the hospital, and watch her be slowly erased. Thanksgiving, and then christmas were spent in the hospice unit at Samaritan Hospital, the very hospital whose doors I would exit carrying my twins more than a decade later.
A week before she died, my grandfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the cycle continued. Within a year, I lost my grandparents, my parents were separated, and my high school sweetheart and I parted ways. I felt a desolation that to this day has not been replicated. Nights were long and horrific, as I fought off nightmares that would cause Wes Craven to cringe. School became a chore, and maintaining relationships and friendships was exhausting and emotional.
My father was told almost five years ago during a colonoscopy that he, too, was now to be forever known as a cancer victim, a cancer fighter, and ultimately- a cancer survivor. He sported a port in his heart where chemo would be injected, and a brazen scar across his abdomen from surgery. Last year, during Relay for Life, he marched with my kids, and it took everything I had to not sob aloud while I walked.
I have my first colonoscopy tomorrow. Today has been a day of fasting, and laxatives and terrible cherry drinks, but more importantly, a day of reflection. I am certain my results will be much more benign than those treasured family members before me, but I cannot help but think of them tonight (as I do often). I am always certain, when Stevie Wonder croons from my car radio, that my grandmother, ever the same age, is seated next to me. When I pass a fire, whether barbecue or brush, I see a fleeting, tall man who resembles my grandfather, ever the quiet hero. And when I see my dad playing in Indian Lake with my children, his scar proudly on display, as a badge of courage, I say a word of thanks- to whom I do not know.
It is brief, this life, briefer still for too many. I will go to my procedure tomorrow, and will come back home to give hugs that last a bit longer than usual, and when I am told good news, I will close my eyes and suspend my disbelief in the spiritual for a moment, to thank my grandparents, my guardian angels.
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