I'll take it

The week that was

Last week was a lot to carry. And a sacred privilege.

I spent several days with one of the dearest people in the world to me, a friend who is family. We first met in boarding school in 7th grade. We have been through so, so much together. We are going through more together now.

I won’t invade her privacy by discussing specifics, but she has been quite ill for over a month. A month of pain, discomfort, uncertainty, disability, and the total interruption of her life. I am hopeful the doctors are nearing a firm diagnosis and treatment plan, and that the worst of her ordeal will soon have passed. But we aren’t there yet. We still don’t know.

I was excited to stay with her for several days. We usually only see each other once or twice a year. I imagined watching our favorite movies together and working on some sewing. Which we did (well, I worked on sewing while she lay in bed). I knew she was sick, I didn’t expect we’d be out partying (as if we have ever done that, unless it’s a craft party).

But in my la-la-land head, I didn’t imagine she would be suffering. And I didn’t imagine what it would feel like watching her suffer. It hit me within moments of my arrival, when she met me at the door breathless from the mildest exertion and deflated in spirit. Oh sh*t, this is for real.

My life has had its challenges, but my closest loved ones and I have been mostly lucky. We’ve lived healthy, contented, secure, meaningful lives for the most part. Most of the people I’ve grieved lived long lives in which I was not terribly involved. I have loved and lost, but not on an intimate level.

Love and grief balance on the scales. Not always in a simple, straightforward way, but nonetheless.

I think my dear friend will be OK. But I grieve for her suffering. Her anxiety gnaws at my own mind. Her pain lights up my senses.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

---

From there, I stopped in to see my cousin, Tracy, who is on hospice. She is not much older than me. She’s had a lot of challenges in her life, but about a decade ago, she finally hit her stride. She got a dream job. She was thriving.

And then it all screeched to a halt. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The surgery left her disabled. Fortunately, her dream job came with dream benefits that have allowed for excellent long term care. But her life as she had known it was over.

Still, she found nooks and crannies of joy and purpose. Her daughter told me Tracy got around the internet on fleet feet, ordering their groceries and doing various other things Tracy’s tech-phobic mother found daunting. Tracy was always a fierce liberal (in Texas!) and followed politics closely. While I was there visiting, though she could barely speak, she managed to spit out some Trump hate, which made me smile.

Tracy had eight cancer-free years. Then one day, she went in for another, minor problem. She was overdue for her brain scan so they went ahead and did it then. The results were shattering. Her tumor had come back, and there was nothing to be done.

Tracy and I have never been close. Growing up overseas, I wasn’t around her that often. But she is part of my blood and my story. I wanted to say good-bye. I wanted to give her grieving close family members a hug. I wanted to show them with my presence that their lives together and love for each other means something to me.

And selfishly, I wanted to experience their love for her. Because I believed sitting with them around Tracy’s bed would feel sacred. And it did.

---

Life has happy chapters, but it has no happy endings. It has no endings at all, in fact. Stories just go on and on and pile up like a stack of books on an overflowing shelf. Even when people die, the human chain keeps getting longer and the drama continues to unfold.

There is success, then there is failure. Then success. There is birth, there is death. There is happiness, there is devastation. Fascism is defeated, then it returns. Diseases are cured, then new ones evolve. Or people stop taking the cures for the old ones because people are the worst. Except when they are the best.

And there is always another Star Wars movie. The Death Star is destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. Like, seriously, how many times can that plot line be recycled. Whatever the number, it’s not as high as the number of times history repeats.

The good news is that bad news isn’t necessarily the final word. But the bad news is neither is good news.

I thought there was one happy ending I could keep. And there was, for me. For now. But it turns out, that movie had a sequel. And while it’s still unfolding, the franchise looks to be tragic.

After I left Tracy, I saw Charlie and Angie. I’ve written about them before. More than any other people in my life, they changed it for good.

The nutshell version is that Charlie survived a brain tumor 23 years ago, the same kind of tumor in fact as Tracy’s. Charlie remains cancer-free, though his body continues to bear the scars. Charlie and Angie helped me leave my first marriage. And then they introduced me to the love of my life. Without them, I would have nothing that I cherish.

Charlie survived, I thrived. Their love for each other and for me taught me to love and ushered me into it. Our daughter was born on Charlie’s birthday. Happy endings all around.

Until the page turned again. A new, terrible diagnosis. This time, for Angie. Angie, who has always held all things together for so many. Angie is the caregiver. Angie was never supposed to need care.

They are back to living from scan to scan. Three months at a time. “How do you adjust to that?” I asked. “That’s how we’ve always lived.”

I asked them which was worse, fighting a terrible disease, or caring for someone fighting a terrible disease. They agreed emphatically and authoritatively. “There’s nothing worse than seeing your beloved suffer,” Charlie said.

As I told them good-bye, I just completely lost it. I told them how important they have been in my life, which is so patently obvious, it hardly needs to be said. I told them it was unfair, their curses, my blessings, all flowing from them. As if they had been picked up like a watering can and poured out into my garden.

I told them how grateful I am. I had told them that earlier, too, when they insisted on buying my dinner. “I should be buying your dinner,” I said. “And everything else.”

“Oh, OK, we’ll just send you the hospital bills then,” Charlie joked.

They should. I owe them every penny.

They said they have been fortunate, too. They love each other like few can manage. I know that is true. I’ve seen it up close for 30 years.

I’ve felt the overflow of their love for each other. It has washed me clean.

---

Anyone who tells you they know what this life means and why things happen as they do and how the grand plan unfolds is a f*cking liar. For all I have seen and felt and lived, I couldn’t even wager a guess at what the hell is going on here.

Both random chance and divine orchestration seem equally implausible as an explanation for two of the best people in the entire world, married to each other, each being diagnosed with a rare cancer.

If there is a God who is conducting things, he’s either a complete asshole or a total idiot. Not when Charlie and Angie’s bodies are assaulted by cancer at a time when a moronic sociopath is getting away with murder-by-DOGE. Charlie’s cancer, by the way, was successfully treated at the NIH.

I don’t believe in that asshole, idiot God. I don't believe in the God who arbitrarily sends people he supposedly loves to eternal torment because they didn’t say the right prayer. I don’t believe in anything much anymore. And I don’t waste time trying to solve impossible riddles. There are so many better things to do. There are so many more possible riddles to solve.

I know people who think they’ve cracked the code. They’ve spent all their time and energy on it, and they bask in self-congratulatory certainty. And maybe that’s worth it to them. It keeps you safe. Maybe it’s truly a source of comfort and joy. It once was to me, to an extent.

But I’ll take love. Love means you can never be certain, because love is constantly changing the game. When you love people, you let them turn you upside down. Their pain seeps through the cracks you’ve refused to fill. Their tragedies rewrite the stories you’ve left unfinished. Their loss stabs you through the heart because you foolishly removed your armor.

Last week, there was grief, sadness, anger, fear, frustration.

Guilt. Why them. Why me. Why us.

But mostly there was love. And I’ll take it, every single time.