From the reflection of a mirror I see a girl raising her head slowly, painfully, and staring at her dehydrated and chalky face. Her eyes are sunken, dark grey circles hanging beneath them, mascara smudged along the lower lids, her eyes swollen and red. Her cheeks are pale, the green and purple veins creeping across the lines of her chin and over the bridge of her nose. She runs her tongue across the rough and dry surface of her crackling lips and as she leans closer, I can see the scratches and purple bruising that is beginning to emerge just below her hairline.
Her eyes widen. She searches the reflection, gently brushing aside a mess of curls and flattening them to her head. Examining her battered brow, she is genuinely surprised. Suddenly, her attention turns to the room around her. The sneakers in the corner, neatly placed by the door are of particular interest and are, in fact, out of place compared to the general untidiness of their surroundings. She steps towards them, eager and quick, only to buckle part way and gawk down at her bare and bruised knees still bleeding slightly from their scrapes. The eyes widen even more so, the attention to this new detail is frightening, the effort to move clearly painful. In jerky strained steps she walks towards the dresser, resting her hands on the smooth wooded surface. She inhales deeply as she her face pales and her stomach revolts against the sudden movement.
She is confused. When she is alone, she slips frantically out of each article of clothing, leaving her pants piled on the floor behind her as she climbs into bed completely naked. When she is not, the sheets are torn off and kicked violent to the foot of the bed, pillows are generally knocked to the ground and she would have wakes up in a loose male undershirt if not entirely naked. Neither of these have happened. Taking a look at her relatively unruffled bed and the untouched pillows she was sure that she been put to bed, not taken to it.
With this threat dispelled the girl’s next concern is caffeine. Sniffing slightly, it is clear there is already something brewing from the room adjacent and the corners of her mouth begin to turn up in a smile. She walks from the room, eyes closed, inhaling deeply.
“ I love you, you know that?” she hums.
A young man sits in the chair before her, a steaming mug of coffee in hand, a television remote in the other. He looks surprised, his lips begin to curl, his eyes shine. He looks amused.
“Well that’s certainly a change from last night.”
The girl’s eyes snap open. Smile vanishing instantly, she freezes, hand stall mid-scratch so that her hair stands puffing out around her fist. Her stomach lurches violently as she watches the young man sipping from the purple mug. Lowering her hand from her hair, her shocked and horrified expression barely wavers as she reaches out for the ceramic handle, brushing past his bruised and scabbed fist.
Her body melts into the nearest chair, the purple mug cuddled against her chest as the hidden memories of the night unveil themselves rapidly in her mind. A giggling friend followed by an angry boy, this one with black hair, not the sandy blonde of the man in front of her. One of her bruises is explained, another flash of the black haired boy trailed closely by a powerful image of an infuriated blonde.
Her stomach lurches violently one more time and the last flood of awareness is that of her drunken body slouching against the side of a building, vomiting into the dirt of the ground. The memory is suddenly too fluid, to real, each sensation incredibly prevalent, the pressure building in her throat, the stinging behind her eyes. Pushing her chair back with a forceful shove, she jumps from the chair, hot coffee erupting from the mug as she rushes to the washroom. Barrelling through the doorway she throws herself towards the toilet, one hand flinging the lid wide as the other catches her falling body on the edge of the bowl and supports her lurching frame as she vomits fiercely, releasing the last of the memories from her system.
“How much did I drink last night?” she groans over the flushing toilet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and leaning her head against the cool tiled wall behind her.
“Enough for it to be coming up again this morning,” he answers leaning against with doorframe, his coffee dangling from his thumb and two middle fingers.
“Fuck off,” she says coldly, as she crawls towards the sink, pulling herself up by the porcelain basin and leaning into the running tap.
“Yeah, you said that several times last night too.”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Growing Backwards
I can remember sitting in a large, overstuffed arm chair, an English textbook cradled in my hands and college applications strewn across my lap.
“ How am I possibly supposed to know what I want to do for the rest of my life?” I throw the textbook onto the top of the application pile in exasperation.
My mother looks up from her newspaper, she doesn’t look quizzical, she doesn’t look amused. She looks irritated, she looks aggressive, she looks angry. She looks exactly the same as she did the day she told me it would have be easier to have had a dog than me.
“You don’t. You think you do, you think you’re happy and you’ve made the right decision, but you honestly have no fucking clue”. The newspaper crinkles as she whips back into place, her angry voice, her aggressive looks fading behind the screen of newsprint.
Mom and Dad got married at 19.
It took me until my third year university to realize that it was nothing I had done to make my mother wish I was a basset hound. I was nearly 20 before I realized that my mother wasn’t angry with me, she was angry with herself.
We sat on the slippery lacquered benches of the cottage kitchen table, our vision blurry and our tongues loose from too much alcohol. Why I just told my mother about my latest relationship issue I'm not entirely sure. Why I just let her know I will always play second fiddle to my boyfriend’s pipe was another mystery to me. Still more concerning however, was her interest not in my failed relationship or bruised heart, but in the actual mechanics of a bong.
"I've never seen one," she says tipping the wine bottle upside down and watching the last of the droplets fall to the surface of her glass.
I look up at her. This woman that I've know my entire life. This woman that to me had seemed so pleased with the perfection of her life, so secure in her purity of morals. She eyes me apprehensively, waiting to see if I will break that barrier between mother and daughter, a barrier that I had built a long time ago.
"Well it packs a punch, that's for sure…especially if it's your first time smoking." She looks at me with the raised eyebrows of a woman prepared to count to five and send you to your room. But under those eyebrows there is a curiosity, there is a genuine interest in the dirty deeds of her daughters present.
"It's not that much different from the vase Grandma used to have in the living room, really."
Her eyes widen, not at the thought that I know the intricacy of a bong, but at the thought that her mother may have used one to house her precious roses.
"It's wider at the bottom though, more bulbous and there's a little cup with a filter that you stuff, light and then pull out to allow…"
The look on her face is nothing resembling concern for her daughter's well being. It is a complete and utter appreciation of new knowledge. She is actually smiling. My mother is smiling while I describe how to take a hit from a bong. The world is a very odd place.
"What else have you never done?" I too am overcome by a curiosity that I have never experienced. There are suddenly question I have never thought of and most certainly until this point, have never desired to explore. Nothing about my mother had ever seemed of any interest to me...unless it was how far away I should stand to avoid a swift kick in the ass.
I always felt like I was failure to my mother. Boyfriends would come and go and my mother would never fail to mention that by her age she was so much more that I was. If I was your age, I would have been married. That boy you just let walk out the door should have been your fiancé. I was constantly reminded that my father and she would have just bought their first car or they would have had their first child. My mother always neglected to remember that not everyone meets their soul mate at 15. Conveniently, she also forgot to mention that she was unhappy.
My mother hated my leaving for university with the passion of a woman who was stuck. At the time I simply hated her right back. It was the easiest solution. But sitting there in the dim summer light of cottage, swivelling my now empty wine bottle in one hand and gesturing the height of Justin's bong with the other, I realize that she didn't hate me. She didn't hate my leaving. She hated the fact that I was escaping for a journey that had never had and most likely never be able to experience.
There is a distinct moment in my past, where upon observation, it is clear that my mother had tried to find her own little piece of happiness. There’s a horrific memory of her dropping me off at school, in all her uncool glory. We were driving into the parking lot, windows down and Macy Grey blaring from the stereo. The tiny green v-dub is pulsating, forced to vibrate with the effort of pumping out such a ridiculously loud beat.
She slams on the breaks, sending the dashboard hula girl into a crazy-mad dance. She nods uncontrollably from the dash as I strain against my seatbelt for the book-bag in the back seat.
`` Four o-clock, OK Mom?” I have the door open, one leg on the pavement, the other awkwardly balancing my between the sidewalk and the car.
“What?!” She between the sidewalk and the car.
“What?!” She yells back over the music. I look at her in utter disbelief.
She’s pounding out the beat on the steering wheel, her blonde hair falling messily out of its constraining clip.
“Four o-clock,” I repeat loudly, slowly as if I’m speaking to a German exchange student. As if she’s deaf and not just too annoying to turn off her music. Her lips move as I watch her. She’s singing along. She’s not even listening. Seriously, sometimes!
I slam the door and she guns it, the little beetle flying past the students, top down, tires squealing, and music blaring.
“Grow up,” I mutter oblivious to the fact that my mother is simply enjoying the moment.
I twist the bottle around one more time, smiling at my mother as she asks me another question about illicit and illegal teenage behaviour. I walk across the room, shuffle through the old pile of CDs that lie beside the stereo. I find the one I’m looking for. I turn around, the music of Macy Grey slowly fills the room and Mom stops asking questions and smiles. She gets up, flings her hands in the air and begins to dance.
In that moment, I realize that I am growing up. I am becoming an adult and my mother is becoming a child. In that brief moment, standing there my cheeks buzzing, my mother twirling and smiling, I realize that maybe this is what we’re supposed to do. Maybe at some point, our roles are supposed to be reversed.
My mother got married at 19. She met my father when she was 15, her first boyfriend. She went from daughter to wife to mother and had never learned to explore who she is. And maybe the time frame is a little messed up, maybe my mother is 45 and not 18, but no one ever said you had to be young to discover who you are. Maybe my mother's job as living for someone else is over. I’m an adult, I’m alright. Maybe this is her time to find out who Catharine really is.
“ How am I possibly supposed to know what I want to do for the rest of my life?” I throw the textbook onto the top of the application pile in exasperation.
My mother looks up from her newspaper, she doesn’t look quizzical, she doesn’t look amused. She looks irritated, she looks aggressive, she looks angry. She looks exactly the same as she did the day she told me it would have be easier to have had a dog than me.
“You don’t. You think you do, you think you’re happy and you’ve made the right decision, but you honestly have no fucking clue”. The newspaper crinkles as she whips back into place, her angry voice, her aggressive looks fading behind the screen of newsprint.
Mom and Dad got married at 19.
It took me until my third year university to realize that it was nothing I had done to make my mother wish I was a basset hound. I was nearly 20 before I realized that my mother wasn’t angry with me, she was angry with herself.
We sat on the slippery lacquered benches of the cottage kitchen table, our vision blurry and our tongues loose from too much alcohol. Why I just told my mother about my latest relationship issue I'm not entirely sure. Why I just let her know I will always play second fiddle to my boyfriend’s pipe was another mystery to me. Still more concerning however, was her interest not in my failed relationship or bruised heart, but in the actual mechanics of a bong.
"I've never seen one," she says tipping the wine bottle upside down and watching the last of the droplets fall to the surface of her glass.
I look up at her. This woman that I've know my entire life. This woman that to me had seemed so pleased with the perfection of her life, so secure in her purity of morals. She eyes me apprehensively, waiting to see if I will break that barrier between mother and daughter, a barrier that I had built a long time ago.
"Well it packs a punch, that's for sure…especially if it's your first time smoking." She looks at me with the raised eyebrows of a woman prepared to count to five and send you to your room. But under those eyebrows there is a curiosity, there is a genuine interest in the dirty deeds of her daughters present.
"It's not that much different from the vase Grandma used to have in the living room, really."
Her eyes widen, not at the thought that I know the intricacy of a bong, but at the thought that her mother may have used one to house her precious roses.
"It's wider at the bottom though, more bulbous and there's a little cup with a filter that you stuff, light and then pull out to allow…"
The look on her face is nothing resembling concern for her daughter's well being. It is a complete and utter appreciation of new knowledge. She is actually smiling. My mother is smiling while I describe how to take a hit from a bong. The world is a very odd place.
"What else have you never done?" I too am overcome by a curiosity that I have never experienced. There are suddenly question I have never thought of and most certainly until this point, have never desired to explore. Nothing about my mother had ever seemed of any interest to me...unless it was how far away I should stand to avoid a swift kick in the ass.
I always felt like I was failure to my mother. Boyfriends would come and go and my mother would never fail to mention that by her age she was so much more that I was. If I was your age, I would have been married. That boy you just let walk out the door should have been your fiancé. I was constantly reminded that my father and she would have just bought their first car or they would have had their first child. My mother always neglected to remember that not everyone meets their soul mate at 15. Conveniently, she also forgot to mention that she was unhappy.
My mother hated my leaving for university with the passion of a woman who was stuck. At the time I simply hated her right back. It was the easiest solution. But sitting there in the dim summer light of cottage, swivelling my now empty wine bottle in one hand and gesturing the height of Justin's bong with the other, I realize that she didn't hate me. She didn't hate my leaving. She hated the fact that I was escaping for a journey that had never had and most likely never be able to experience.
There is a distinct moment in my past, where upon observation, it is clear that my mother had tried to find her own little piece of happiness. There’s a horrific memory of her dropping me off at school, in all her uncool glory. We were driving into the parking lot, windows down and Macy Grey blaring from the stereo. The tiny green v-dub is pulsating, forced to vibrate with the effort of pumping out such a ridiculously loud beat.
She slams on the breaks, sending the dashboard hula girl into a crazy-mad dance. She nods uncontrollably from the dash as I strain against my seatbelt for the book-bag in the back seat.
`` Four o-clock, OK Mom?” I have the door open, one leg on the pavement, the other awkwardly balancing my between the sidewalk and the car.
“What?!” She between the sidewalk and the car.
“What?!” She yells back over the music. I look at her in utter disbelief.
She’s pounding out the beat on the steering wheel, her blonde hair falling messily out of its constraining clip.
“Four o-clock,” I repeat loudly, slowly as if I’m speaking to a German exchange student. As if she’s deaf and not just too annoying to turn off her music. Her lips move as I watch her. She’s singing along. She’s not even listening. Seriously, sometimes!
I slam the door and she guns it, the little beetle flying past the students, top down, tires squealing, and music blaring.
“Grow up,” I mutter oblivious to the fact that my mother is simply enjoying the moment.
I twist the bottle around one more time, smiling at my mother as she asks me another question about illicit and illegal teenage behaviour. I walk across the room, shuffle through the old pile of CDs that lie beside the stereo. I find the one I’m looking for. I turn around, the music of Macy Grey slowly fills the room and Mom stops asking questions and smiles. She gets up, flings her hands in the air and begins to dance.
In that moment, I realize that I am growing up. I am becoming an adult and my mother is becoming a child. In that brief moment, standing there my cheeks buzzing, my mother twirling and smiling, I realize that maybe this is what we’re supposed to do. Maybe at some point, our roles are supposed to be reversed.
My mother got married at 19. She met my father when she was 15, her first boyfriend. She went from daughter to wife to mother and had never learned to explore who she is. And maybe the time frame is a little messed up, maybe my mother is 45 and not 18, but no one ever said you had to be young to discover who you are. Maybe my mother's job as living for someone else is over. I’m an adult, I’m alright. Maybe this is her time to find out who Catharine really is.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Cancer Is My Job
Cancer is my job. I don’t mean that figuratively. Literally, cancer is my job.
I hang up the phone, a tight ball of emotion tugging at the back of my throat. I thumb the bright yellow sticky notes in front of me and pen: leukemia. I lift the receiver and drumming the pen against the wooden desktop, I dial-in to my interoffice messaging system one more time. I scribble down the number and make a note to return their call.
The receiver clicks into the cradle and I glance down at the post-it balancing on the edge of my computer screen. Leukemia, 2 yrs. Next to that sits another note: Geoff, 23 testicular and under that; Miriam 42, Terminal.
All my life, I have been surrounded by notes like these. Sitting on my coffee table, scribbled next to the phone book, thrown into my lunch box by mistake. It wasn’t my mother’s fault. She had other things on her mind. When you have two notes side by side, it’s easy to get confused. With a flick of the wrist, your message about chemotherapy treatment suddenly becomes your daughter’s I love you honey and vice-versa. I would excuse myself from the classroom, wander down to the office and in my most polite, mind-your-manners-while-speaking-to-adults voice, I would ask to borrow the phone. Mom forgot easily those days. It was part of the routine. The information on the note would still be important and Daddy had taught us not to ignore them if we found them unexpectedly.
It isn’t a coincidence that ten years later I’m sitting in an office surrounded by notes like these.
The telephone rings again.
“Good morning, Canadian Cancer Society Patient Services, how may I help you?” There is a pause on the other end of the line. The sound of someone struggling to enunciate their exact needs. Really, what can you say? I have cancer? Take it away? That’s the only way we can really help these people. I wait. That is my job. I wait and I listen and I assist in any way I can.
“I have cancer,” the women says. She sounds shocked. She sounds exhausted. She sounds empty. Not a surprise.
This is always the hard part for me. Day after day people call me to find out about our services and most times, nine times out of ten, they are a newly diagnosed patient. They are someone who is still struggling with the reality of having an incredibly life threatening disease. How do you respond to this? You can be light hearted: With a false bravado in your voice you can tell them that this is the perfect number to call, you can be professional and explain to them that we are the patient services department and whatever they need, we can provide. Then you can be me: You can sit there sharing a silent moment with this person. You can know the effort it takes to utter those three words and you can hurt for them in just the same way you hurt when you saw those notes in your lunchbox.
“I have cervical cancer,” she elaborates after a moment, “stage 3.”
My heart sinks. Stage 3 means infected lymph nodes. It means it is not only in the lymph node, but scattered, spreading, tumerous and attacking both above and below the women’s diaphragm. It was this stage that forced my childhood living room to become a hospital cubical. It was this stage that made me hate the word cancer with a passion of indescribable depth.
“ This is always a scary situation to find yourself in...” I venture. I’m testing the waters. In fifty percent of cases this will lead to a question, in the others anger, a demand; do you really understand what I’m going through?
“Yeah...” she answers rather feebly.
“Well, there are plenty of services that we offer here. Patient support, peer to peer interaction, rides to treatment, any of the above. What can I help you with?” I have my post-its ready, prepared to make notes.
“I need you to tell me I’m not going to die.”
My body is frozen.
“I need you to tell me I can fight this.”
I sit rigid in my chair, all air sucked from my lungs by this request. I don’t have that answer, I want to tell her. I don’t believe that!, I want to yell. There is a piercing memory fresh in my mind. There is a dying women in my living room begging me to tell this women the opposite, screaming for her to hang up now, hug her children and say goodbye before it’s too late. There is a lot that I want to tell this woman, but I don’t. Instead I let the pen fall to note pad.
I look through bleary eyes at the mandate pasted to my desk top and I tell her that we will find a cure. I tell her that together, we are strong. I tell her that there are options, there are treatments and there are people who can try to work miracles for her. I tell her the success rates for women her age. I tell her everything I know about the disease and how to fight it. I tell her that for cancer patients the fight is not against cancer, but for life. I tell her to fight for life and let us fight the cancer for her. I leave her the number for a specialist in her field and I tell her if anyone can save her, he can.
By the time I hang up the phone, I almost believe myself.
Almost.
I hang up the phone, a tight ball of emotion tugging at the back of my throat. I thumb the bright yellow sticky notes in front of me and pen: leukemia. I lift the receiver and drumming the pen against the wooden desktop, I dial-in to my interoffice messaging system one more time. I scribble down the number and make a note to return their call.
The receiver clicks into the cradle and I glance down at the post-it balancing on the edge of my computer screen. Leukemia, 2 yrs. Next to that sits another note: Geoff, 23 testicular and under that; Miriam 42, Terminal.
All my life, I have been surrounded by notes like these. Sitting on my coffee table, scribbled next to the phone book, thrown into my lunch box by mistake. It wasn’t my mother’s fault. She had other things on her mind. When you have two notes side by side, it’s easy to get confused. With a flick of the wrist, your message about chemotherapy treatment suddenly becomes your daughter’s I love you honey and vice-versa. I would excuse myself from the classroom, wander down to the office and in my most polite, mind-your-manners-while-speaking-to-adults voice, I would ask to borrow the phone. Mom forgot easily those days. It was part of the routine. The information on the note would still be important and Daddy had taught us not to ignore them if we found them unexpectedly.
It isn’t a coincidence that ten years later I’m sitting in an office surrounded by notes like these.
The telephone rings again.
“Good morning, Canadian Cancer Society Patient Services, how may I help you?” There is a pause on the other end of the line. The sound of someone struggling to enunciate their exact needs. Really, what can you say? I have cancer? Take it away? That’s the only way we can really help these people. I wait. That is my job. I wait and I listen and I assist in any way I can.
“I have cancer,” the women says. She sounds shocked. She sounds exhausted. She sounds empty. Not a surprise.
This is always the hard part for me. Day after day people call me to find out about our services and most times, nine times out of ten, they are a newly diagnosed patient. They are someone who is still struggling with the reality of having an incredibly life threatening disease. How do you respond to this? You can be light hearted: With a false bravado in your voice you can tell them that this is the perfect number to call, you can be professional and explain to them that we are the patient services department and whatever they need, we can provide. Then you can be me: You can sit there sharing a silent moment with this person. You can know the effort it takes to utter those three words and you can hurt for them in just the same way you hurt when you saw those notes in your lunchbox.
“I have cervical cancer,” she elaborates after a moment, “stage 3.”
My heart sinks. Stage 3 means infected lymph nodes. It means it is not only in the lymph node, but scattered, spreading, tumerous and attacking both above and below the women’s diaphragm. It was this stage that forced my childhood living room to become a hospital cubical. It was this stage that made me hate the word cancer with a passion of indescribable depth.
“ This is always a scary situation to find yourself in...” I venture. I’m testing the waters. In fifty percent of cases this will lead to a question, in the others anger, a demand; do you really understand what I’m going through?
“Yeah...” she answers rather feebly.
“Well, there are plenty of services that we offer here. Patient support, peer to peer interaction, rides to treatment, any of the above. What can I help you with?” I have my post-its ready, prepared to make notes.
“I need you to tell me I’m not going to die.”
My body is frozen.
“I need you to tell me I can fight this.”
I sit rigid in my chair, all air sucked from my lungs by this request. I don’t have that answer, I want to tell her. I don’t believe that!, I want to yell. There is a piercing memory fresh in my mind. There is a dying women in my living room begging me to tell this women the opposite, screaming for her to hang up now, hug her children and say goodbye before it’s too late. There is a lot that I want to tell this woman, but I don’t. Instead I let the pen fall to note pad.
I look through bleary eyes at the mandate pasted to my desk top and I tell her that we will find a cure. I tell her that together, we are strong. I tell her that there are options, there are treatments and there are people who can try to work miracles for her. I tell her the success rates for women her age. I tell her everything I know about the disease and how to fight it. I tell her that for cancer patients the fight is not against cancer, but for life. I tell her to fight for life and let us fight the cancer for her. I leave her the number for a specialist in her field and I tell her if anyone can save her, he can.
By the time I hang up the phone, I almost believe myself.
Almost.
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