We’ll Be back tomorrow

We sit at Grandpa’s side as he lay unconscious, the planned two-week separation between us expedited to a mere 72 hours. Serene music plays on the television where football played in a continual loop barely two days prior.  

The peaceful music makes me anxious. It feels as if the air has been sucked out of the room. 

Our hands hold his, praying they will squeeze back. Wishing his eyes will open and offer one more of his sly winks, as if this was one last joke of his. His grand finale. We keep the door to his room closed, hoping we can keep Her at bay a bit longer. Her distant footfalls echo down the hall outside. They seem louder than when we were here last. Closer. 

Death. 

The Period at the end of all of our sentences. Finite and Unwavering, She is the revolting Sister that loudly reminds us of the bounded timeline upon which we are placed. And if we choose to not recognize Her tugging at our sleeves, She will make Her presence known nonetheless. There is no Life without Death in our fragile state, yet we are often distracted from this fact by the day-to-day delirium of being told what to need and want, expelling our fleeting time and energy to obtain such things. All while Death waits. 

She has all the time in the world for us to forget that we don’t. 

She has all the time in the world for us to ignore Her presence, until She steps out from the Shadows and takes one of us by the hand and leads us Elsewhere. Only then do we get a glimmer of Her piercing eyes. Eyes made of mirrors. Mirrors reflecting all of our regrets and triumphs. Mirrors where all of our should have’s, could have’s, and did’s stare back at us. Scream at us. Decorate us. As we face these realizations, the silence of existence is deafening. The tape of our life plays in rapid-succession. The memories of our past and the future-that-could-have-been projected onto the backs of our eyes. The inevitable tick tick tick of the reel reaching its end fills the silence. 

I was awakened to this understanding as I sat treatment after treatment, hooked up to various monitors and IVs pumping me with the chemical concoction of the day.  And I am reminded of it now, as I sit in my Grandfather’s room, watching as he slips farther and farther away with each passing moment. Listening as his breaths shorten and Her’s draw nearer. 

I know there is nothing I can do or say at this point to stop the inevitable. To stop Death from letting Herself in. So I cling to each moment as if it is a mere thread. A thread that, if pulled, would unravel the entire fabric of his body and leave nothing but the warm imprint of where he lay. 

The Hospice nurses swarm into the room to adjust Grandpa’s position, and I quickly shut the door behind them. I brace myself as I lean against the door, staving off Her thin fingers from tugging on those delicate fibers.

The room falls quiet as Grandpa is lifted and lowered back onto the bed. We wait for either silence or one more rattling breath to fill his sunken lungs. I feel Her breath on the other side of the door. Cold. Expectant. 

We cling to each of his exhausted breaths. The long gaps between them lasting what feels like minutes and then miles. We hold our own for one more of his.

Finally his chest rises and so do our heads. She leaves, for now.

As I sit back down on the overstuffed chair,  I look around at the various photos of my family that adorn the room. The refined blobs of ink composing the past and a longing of what our former selves were. My eyes scan over all of the frozen moments, and I find myself aching for the ones that occurred just before or after the shutter closed. 

The slight adjusting of hair right before the family portrait was taken. The licking of fingers after cutting the wedding cake. The turning back to the sink to finish the dishes while the tv hums from the next room over. These are the moments that do not exist in ink. They are the ones that only existed in flesh and undetermined timelines. 

They say a photo is worth a thousand words. I’d give for just one more of yours right now, Grandpa. 

I wring my hands as I look to the ground, thoughts of how simultaneously wrong (for you) and right (for me) everything needed to go for us to get to this point. The various cogs and gears of my body continuing to grind and push onwards while yours slow down. We poured drugs into my veins to chase out the imposters who threatened to take everything. The slash-and-burn equivalent to a cure. There was no cure for you. Your fevers continue to spike as your body fights the imposters that could not be chased. 

I am of your blood, but the hands we have been dealt are not the same. 

Yet, as I sit here fighting back Death from turning the door-handle and letting Herself in, I realize something. People consider Death the tragic figure in our lives, and for some She undoubtedly is. That doesn’t feel far off in this particular moment. Yet, I think a greater tragedy is the collective assumption of how long all of our sentences will be before She places the Period. 

Death becomes the Tragedy when She arrives before Her presumed appointment time.

Sadness. Anger. Regret. These are all things Death undoubtedly carries with Her. But tragedy seems to come with certain parameters of unexpected loss. And as we go along, assuming what we are owed in terms of time upon this terrestrial plane, we are collectively numbed by the whirlpool of societal requirements for a “full life,” without appreciating the fine line we all walk on and the pain we all share. (Undoubtedly some more than others.) But we have all lost. Homes, jobs, those we’ve loved.  Yet we quickly forget this when we march onwards in the power struggle of claiming our own freedom (financial, societal, emotional), only softening when it is time for Her Appointment. Only when we are forced to look down and see the tightrope we all tread upon do we realize how amazingly complex and poignant we all are. At least, I like to think most of us do. 

After my transplant, I thought I would learn to forget about the trivial matters. To appreciate the small moments of the in-between, like the ones from the photos I long for now. To drink in the beautiful nuances of strangers and family alike. After all, who knew how many opportunities I had left. Why waste them on fretting bad traffic or the curt email I just received. 

I thought me achieving the freedom of living each day untethered to an IV would finally drown out the cacophony of comparative noise and judgements. And some days it has. But most days I find myself falling into the rabbit hole of discontent, the laundry list of things I want and should be growing longer until I am drowning in a sea of disgruntlement. Why am I always falling back into—

My phone dings with Tweets and Instagram notifications. The world calling me back to the watering-hole of comparison and “needs.” Focusing my attention on the latest gaming console or how many followers I don’t have.

Ah yes. That’s right. The world continues as others are marked indelibly with Her effortless grace, each of us collecting our hidden scars and running to join the ones She has not yet taken in the Life that has moved on. The Life that is constantly reminding you to catch up. To forget the silent acquaintance of Grief, if only for a moment.

Yet Grief is the friend who is always ready to pick up where you left off. Each turn of the knife cutting a bit deeper than you last remember. 

The knives seem to be getting sharper these days. The visits more frequent. 

My Mom gently touches my shoulder, it is time to go. I give my Grandpa a kiss on the forehead, inhaling deeply. The warm smell that has always been distinctly his fills my lungs where I tuck it for safe-keeping. A mix of flannel and bar soap.  

We love you and we’ll be back tomorrow. 

As my Mom and I close the door behind us, I wiggle the handle to make sure it won’t budge under Death’s grip. We walk down the hallway towards the front door as I listen for Her footfalls. All is silent except for the drone of the televisions in the common room and the shuffling of a resident’s feet. 

—

I should have barricaded the door. I should have stacked these words in front of it so they would fall like marbles with any slight movement and cast Her sideways. 

The dull ache from where Grief’s knife was plunged earlier that morning reminds me of why we are here. Why I am standing with my Mom at the family cemetery plot, taking note of where Grandpa will be buried.

The grass is soft beneath my feet. The air cold upon my face. 

I steel my face towards the wind. Hundreds of mothers, fathers, bigots, and saviors resting peacefully a few feet below my own. I wonder how peacefully they really do sleep. While the agitated world around their eternal bed continues. While the world continues to step forward and backwards day after day. A constant oscillation between progress and regression. 

And in that moment, I find peace standing amongst those whom Death tucked in long ago to rest. It’s as if the Earth knew that all should remain quiet here. Even the sky, breathing soft sighs of relief, could rest the thick blanket of grey clouds a bit lower in the sky. A welcomed repose from their weight.

We no longer hold our breath. We simply hold each other. 

Yet Grief and Death linger in the breeze. There is no sudden outcry in surprise. It is the slow, undulating waves of unrelenting sadness that crash upon you moment after moment, the quietness of a fleeting reminder that you’ll be ok as the pain recesses like the tide. And just when you feel like you can breathe, the waves come crashing down again, reminding you of the loss of what was and never will be again. 

A reminder that there are no doors for me to lock. No fabric to protect. The threads have been pulled.

We love you and we’ll be back tomorrow. 

---

IN MEMORY OF GRANDPA

---

DWIGHT STREET

There’s an eerie quietness to the House as we sit, sifting through old family photos and sorting them into an “Ours,” “Theirs,” and “Toss" pile - a pile reserved for photos of nameless faces whose remaining threads of familial connection have finally been severed. 

It’s just my sister and I sitting on the old tan shag carpeting of the living room, rummaging through the photo bins as we wait. The carpeting feels like wool scratching my bare legs as I sit cross-legged in the middle of the floor. I’m the idiot who wore shorts, I tell myself as I try to nonchalantly itch my legs in an attempt to not draw my sister’s attention. Normally I wouldn’t worry about hiding any discomfort brought on by my shoddy wardrobe choices but it’s 48 degrees outside and I could use one less reminder from Kenzie that I was always the dumbass who wore shorts up here in December. Apparently Florida fashion doesn’t transcend midwest standards once the temperature nears zero. 

But there we sit, with merely the dull crackle of the Furnace and tap tap of falling leaves hitting the warped glass of the House’s old windows. Windows that have stood vigilant over the neighborhood for the last century. Windows that watched my Mom and her Brother grow up and then eventually my sisters and I.

A tightness forms in my chest as we sit waiting. Waiting for our Grandparents to come back home, so we can put all of their things back on the various shelves and pretend like nothing ever changed. Waiting to forget what they have forgotten and the diagnoses they have each been handed. Waiting for something we both know will never come.

Kenzie gets up to get another garbage bag, and I pull out another stack of photos. Up comes a waft of air, long trapped between the faded ink and frozen smiles. It smells of must and old paper. Perfume of the past. A knife twists. A photo of my 8-yr-old Mom grinning wide as she sits alongside her brother and parents in the very same room I find myself in begins to blur as my eyes fill with tears. I so strongly want to turn back time, so Mom can be that small again. When the only pain she has known is falling off her bike, the only loss she has grieved is of her front tooth, and the only “goodbyes” she has given are temporary.

I push back more tears and wipe my eyes as Kenzie re-enters the room. Her silent presence startles me. The Grandfather Clock perched in the corner of the living room always rattles its chains in disagreement if someone dare take more than a tip-toe across the neighboring room’s faded blue berber carpeting. I look behind me, wondering why the Grandfather Clock hadn’t given me a heads up this time. All that stands in its place is a bin of my Great Aunt’s old yarn skeins and a few empty boxes. The chimes, merely phantom memories, ring loudly in my ears as Kenzie dumps the “Toss” photos into a fresh garbage bag, our parent’s wedding portrait at the top of the heap. 

A different knife twists. 

“I feel weird throwing that.” 

“Mom doesn’t want it,” Kenzie reminds me. “You can keep it if you want to.”

I don’t. I’m nostalgic but not delusional. 

The Furnace continues to keep us company while the rest of the House sleeps or offers a weary sigh as it shifts its weight in an attempt to find a more comfortable position.

“What time are they coming again?,” Kenzie asks. 

“Uhh, 11. So should be here in a few minutes,” I respond as I check my watch. It yells at me to stand. I turn back toward the photos. 

 “Mind taking the lead on this one?,” Kenzie asks. 

“Not at all.”

The House and I let out a simultaneous sigh. 

“Do you know who these people are?” Kenzie offers an old black and white photo of a handsome yet stoic group of people. 

“No idea. It’s not Grandpa’s family.” 

Kenzie moves to discard it. 

“Wait. Don’t throw that. I don’t want to anger anyone,” I say, motioning to whatever Spirits lay in wait, ready to make hell for whoever dare cast their memory aside. 

Kenzie nods. “Good call.” She tosses the photo into the “Ours” pile. 

A soft breeze blows through the open screen door that frames the back wall. A group of kids giggle in the distance. We are surrounded by dusty tchotchkes and worn furniture that someone will eventually buy for their mid-century modern living room. They say style is cyclical. 

If only memory worked that way too. 

A car door closes on the street out front. I stand up, putting the unsorted photos in my hand back into the bin. 

“Here we go,” I mumble.  

“Just remember what Mom said,” Kenzie offers.  

“Yep.” 

I go to the sagging screened-in front porch, a part of the House we never spent much time in. (Largely because we only ever used the backdoor.) I guess it’s fitting that we aren’t doing things the “normal way” for this visit.

“Hello!,” the real estate agent chimes.  

“Hi!,” I attempt jovially, as my voice catches in my throat, some form of protest in welcoming this stranger into the House so we may expose Its soul and scars, all while attempting to conceal our own. 

“Come in. Please watch your step. Obviously the front porch is rough…” I nervously fill the silence while my stomach turns, knowing the man and woman who worked tirelessly for this House cannot defend it from their nursing home rooms. 

My sister introduces herself and apologizes for the mess. 

The real estate agent sympathetically brushes it off. 

“It’s just us today. Mom is with Grandpa and Hospice,” my voice wavers. 

Words spill out of me before tears can.  

“But I can show you around and answer any questions. The main thing Mom wanted relayed was that the House needs to be sold as-is and not contingent upon financing.”

The agent nods and senses the uneasiness. She takes the lead while she pulls out her laser pointer.

“Makes sense. Do you want to show me around or prefer I go alone? Either way works for me. I’ll be taking measurements and might have a few questions but this is mainly to get a sense of the state of the house so I can make the best possible assessment for the listing.” 

I stumble over my words as my brain and heart debate whether I should lead the tour. Eventually I offer to show the agent around. 

Kenzie looks on as if willing me strength to keep it together.  

The agent and I step into the next room with the Furnace, leaving Kenzie to continue sifting through the bins of long-forgotten memories. 

Our feet pad across the thin carpeting, the old House groaning with each step. The familiar black dining room Table sits in the corner as if it’s in timeout and waiting to be allowed visitation rights again. 

“This was always the dining room,” I explain. “The Table was set up here and there was a small Couch along this wall.” I point to a now empty wall. 

I frown slightly as I pause. I wonder where that went? 

The soft creak of the real estate agent shifting her weight brings me back. I turn toward her and notice the Grandfather Clock standing next to the Telephone. Not sure how I missed it before…

The old Phone hangs loyally on the wall, its mile-long-chord slightly kinked from years of being stretched to its limits. The Clock leans tired against the window, a large raised hump in the floor sending it kilter. We take a step closer toward the dormant timepiece. Its aching chains still don’t stir. Its worn out hands long retired from measuring the time. 

I point to a door in the far corner behind the Furnace. A door I never opened in all 25 years of visiting the House. 

“That leads to the basement. We can go down later if you want,” I offer, putting off the visit for a bit longer as if the 3-ft-long centipedes and monsters I heard tales of as a child are still waiting for me. 

The agent nods and follows me as I walk through the doorway of a humble room just to the left of the dining room. I look up as I cross over the threshold, half expecting the countless holiday cards that adorned the wooden frame every Christmas to still be there, offering a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!,” to all who pass by. A couple pieces of yellowed tape still cling haphazardly to the molding, their reason for existence having been plucked from their grasp many Christmases ago. 

“This was my Grandparents room,” I say, voice catching in my throat. I realize that this is the first time I have stepped foot in this space. I feel as if I am looking in on a small piece of the world that was never meant for my eyes. An accordion door always stood guard, keeping private all that I am now seeing. I look back to the doorway, searching for the noble sentinel. It abandoned its post long ago, when our eyes were no longer around to be shielded. 

I feel like a giant in the tiny room my Grandparents shared for most of their lives.  A small section of shag carpeting looks to be freshly laid, a clear outline of where their full-size bed stood for 53 years. The rest of the room’s flooring is sun-bleached and worn. 

The room is now filled with boxes of my Grandparents’ old clothes and Christmas decorations. I pick up a small deer ornament that hung faithfully on the Christmas tree every year. I turn it over in my hand as the agent takes her final measurements. It’s lighter than I imagined. 

“Huh,” I muse quietly. 

The deer smiles up at me as it did every year. Its slightly disheveled Santa hat narrowly missing its eye.

The agent hangs hesitantly by the door, ready to move on with the tour. 

I set the ornament down and walk towards the doorway. One of my Grandfather’s countless flannel jackets hangs limply from a box by the doorway, its arms outstretched as if asking to feel the warmth of skin again. My hands give it a squeeze as I walk by. 

We walk through the kitchen, all of the appliances now removed like rotten teeth.  Dishes and cooking utensils roost on the folding tables lining the edges of the room, as if recently evicted from the cupboards they lived in for decades. I continue past the cabinets that always smelled of expired spices and something I could never quite place. A heavy, stale, and piquant stench that would rest squarely on your tongue if inhaled too deeply. I would hold my breath before opening the cupboard whenever Grandma needed the chili sauce for the Christmas Eve Lil Smokies. 

I open that same cupboard as I walk by, trying to fill my lungs with the pungent air I deprived them of for so many years. 

I explain where the stove and fridge used to be, peeling linoleum tiles and grease stained walls filling in the blanks where my wavering voice trails off. The old brick-patterned vinyl wall-covering is exposed from beneath several layers of previous kitchen updates. Each layer representing the distinct decades they stood watch over, like some carcinogenic version of etching my height against a doorframe.

The ghost of the massive jar of pickled eggs that sat atop the icebox for years lingers in the upper right corner of the room as I think about the hours I stood next to Grandma at the stove, helping with whatever I could to avoid whichever football game was on in the living room. 

A quiet falls over the space and I hear Kenzie digging through more photos. There is no football on today. There is no stove to stand at. Even if there was, Grandma is wary if I stand too close these days. I would be wary of a stranger too. 

I close the cabinet, its white paint scratched from years of opening and closing on command.  The tinny cathunk of the bent metal latch clamping shut mixes with the plastic crunching of our feet on the dry linoleum floor. 

The agent and I step towards the back mudroom, the only entrance to the House I have ever known. The temperature drops a few degrees as we cross the threshold. The two-inch gap at the bottom of the back door that has grown over the years doesn’t help. As I pass through the kitchen doorway into the mudroom, I glance to the small square of floor next to the sink where the trashcan used to sit. Grandma’s boots have taken its place in the small alcove, their tongues pulled out, still drying from their last trek through the snow several years ago. 

They sit patiently, waiting for my Grandma’s return. They will remain there until either sold or thrown away, but that is a secret I keep to myself. 

“This room isn’t heated, is that correct?,” the agent interrupts.  

“Um, yes. I believe that is correct. The heat is just the furnace you saw and the pipes that run upstairs.”

Why am I nervous? 

This House is tired.

I’m tired. 

I point out where the washer and dryer used to sit. For a flicker I see Grandma helping Mom throw our dirty clothes in the night before we have to leave. My Grandma hands me my coat from the Coat Rack before I step outside to play in the snow.

Grandma fades and in her place is the agent, taking her measurements. Measurements that will fail to represent just how much this House can hold. As I watch our memories be reduced to square-feet and flooring-finishes, I notice Grandpa’s work jacket hanging on the Coat Rack.

It remains where it always has, facing the door, waiting expectantly for Grandpa to return so It may keep his frail bones warm. 

I catch a glimpse of myself in the vanity that hangs at the foot of the steps to the left of me. My eyes are slightly red from the on-and-off waterworks that seem to be pouring out of them these days. I open the door, hoping to find everything in its place as I last remembered. The pack of bandaids seemingly kept on hand just for the grandkids. The antique eye-wash cup I thought was a shot-glass. The wiry bristled brush my Grandma would use to hastily groom her short black hair into place before rushing out the door for her shift at the bakery.

The vanity is empty, except for a few loose hairs and a lost button. 

The agent waits to continue on with the tour. I turn the porcelain handle of the old wooden door that separates the upstairs from the rest of the House and reveal the Exorcist Steps leading to the second floor. The same shag carpeting from downstairs covers the steep stairs. The long wooden cylinder railing that has always clung to the wall guides us upstairs. We each grab ahold and begin our ascent. I hold on a little tighter for this trip. 

“These are some nice sturdy steps,” the agent acknowledges. 

“Yeah,” I nervously laugh as I look down at the treads, long worn at the edges (no doubt from the many years of my sisters and I riding down them). We round to the top of the steps, and I point out the closet just off the end of the landing. 

I slide the slightly bent latch around to open it, half hoping that Mom’s prom dress and our Grandparents’ hunting jackets would still be hanging inside, preserving a time that has long passed. 

“There are some large cracks in here,” I say anxiously, as if this is a test and I am waiting for the agent to laugh at our memories and scars. 

We both look in and see the fracturing of the walls, long tired from holding on to so many secrets. 

The agent kneels down and looks underneath the two layers of old linoleum that line the bottom of the closet, exposing hard wood floors that were there long before I was. 

“Your Grandfather did a good job of taking care of this place. All of this is standard with these older homes.” 

My stomach eases a little, knowing Mom would take comfort in that. 

We close the closet door and I make my way to the bathroom while the agent moves towards the room at the end of the hallway. I check the toilet to make sure it has been flushed, the plumbing having slowed down over the years. I watch as the water sluggishly empties out of the worn bowl.

Before I exit, I open the bathroom vanity and a waft of air hits my face. It smells of Irish Spring soap and Grandma’s hairspray. I inhale deeply, wishing my lungs could hold the air forever, so I may release it whenever I choose to go back in time. So I may not forget. Forget the hours my sisters and I spent in the old claw foot tub playing with Disney water whistles and putting on our bubble beards before bed. Forget when we would spy on the adults during the Christmas party, peering down through the floor vent in the bathroom and scattering the minute we heard someone mention they needed to pee. Forget when I would sneak upstairs to weigh myself in solitude, when I stopped eating Grandma’s Christmas Eve Lil Smokies. 

I close the vanity and catch up with the agent in the back bedroom.

“It’s not uncommon to have to walk through one bedroom to get to the other in these old homes,” she said, as if knowing my family’s uneasiness with the state of the House. 

“Yeah, we would stay in here on the bunkbeds and our parents would sleep in this side room,” I explain. Maybe if the real estate agent can picture our past we can arrive there like some twisted Wizard of Oz.

I seem to have misplaced my ruby slippers though… 

We leave the room, the bunk bed feeling a bit smaller than it used to. I had been here in recent years, but it seems to have shrunken alongside my Grandfather while I have been away. 

The agent peeks her head into the last bedroom. The mattress is covered in more boxes of my Grandparents’ clothes and stacks of old board games we used to play. 

“This was my Uncle’s room,” I explain. Again, not sure why I feel the need to share that information. 

She nods and heads down to the bathroom I just came from. The Lace Curtains that frame the window at the end of the hall catch my eye. The Curtains my sister and I would pretend were our wedding veils when we were five. They look the same, even after so many weddings…

The agent exits the bathroom, blocking my view of the matrimonial lace window-coverings. 

“I can show you the garage if you like,” I offer. 

We go back downstairs, the Steps groaning softly as they support our weight. The muffled sounds of Kenzie still sorting photos fills the silence with the hum of the Furnace. As we open the back door, I look up and see the two Paint-by-Numbers Clown Paintings that have hung at the base of the steps for as long as I can remember. They are the type of paintings you race past as a child, worried they may come to life and pull you into their melancholy world of lead-based face paint and sad balloon animals. They somehow manage to feel a bit more melancholy today, as if they know their shift as Nightwatchmen is rapidly coming to an end after all these years. 

I give them a hesitant nod and step outside, still unconvinced the paintings won’t come to life. The cool breeze and warm sun offer a partial relief from the weight we just left. The bird feeders hang warily from the tree, long empty and vacated. The small paved path leading to the garage dips and weaves its way to the sagging brown shed. A basketball hoop hovers over the peeling siding of the garage, its net long gone. 

The House looks on sadly, Its brown frame with yellow trim looming over what It cannot control. The warped glass of age distorting its vision like tears. 

The sky is so blue. We have that in common today. 

I open the door to the garage, the tired wood scraping the exhausted asphalt. The smell of old wood swells and envelopes us. Bags of my Grandparents’ duck decoys line the walls, a collection that has grown over decades of hunting. Ice fishing poles and antiquated tools long retired are scattered in the far corners of the room. A rusted ladder remains chained to the wall. My Grandfathers’ high school football along with his old softball gloves, lie in a pile at the center of the floor next to an old wooden toboggan. I walk over and pick up the football. 

I squeeze the leather, as if clinging to the discarded cells that remain affixed to its surface will bring the Grandpa I remember back. The Grandpa that wasn’t fading away with each passing day. 

I close my eyes as I inhale deeply. A breeze blows outside. A dog barks in the distance. The soft click click click of wheels turning mixes with an inadvertent tinkle of a bell.

Realizing the agent must be waiting on me, I open my eyes to find that I stand alone in the garage. The wood no longer sags, the cracks in the door seemingly repaired. 

The click click click grows louder. 

A new wooden toboggan hangs on the wall alongside a shiny metal ladder that has been chained to it. 

As I move to leave, the shed door bursts open. Its door swings effortlessly above the ground, wood and asphalt not yet meeting. 

The click click click fills the room as a little girl with short blonde hair runs in and leans her bike against the wall next to a small bag of duck decoys. She runs out, not noticing me. 

I follow her, up the smooth paved path, birds flitting by to get a spot on one of the overflowing bird-feeders. 

The little girl pulls open the back-door, its wood lightly rubbing against the top step as she does so. She barrels past a single clown painting that hangs on the wall, the various 2s and 4s barely visible from underneath the fresh paint. She throws her light jacket onto the coat rack. A man’s jacket already hangs facing the door, as if waiting for her return.

Her mom stands at a mirror by the door, hastily smoothing her thin black hair with a wiry brush as she talks on the phone, its chord barely hanging on from two rooms over. 

The woman lowers the phone from her ear as she yells something inaudible to the girl rushing by. She takes one last look before walking away from the mirror, the phone chord breathing a sigh of relief with each step.

I follow behind, walking through the dining room, past a small couch that sits next to the furnace. 

A grandfather clock rattles its chains from the next room over as it announces each intruder. 

The little girl giggles as she runs into the living room, hops over her brother who is playing marbles on the floor, and jumps onto the couch, where her father lies. Her father jumps up to greet her as her mom enters and takes a seat. 

I stare on as my Mom grins.

The image blurs. All is quiet except for the hum of the Furnace and the distant sounds of photos being sorted.

NOT LIKE THE OTHERS

The uneasiness has not yet disappeared, and I am not sure that it ever will… 

Each check-up, swollen lymph-node, or random bruise jolts my nervous system into high-alert. As I get farther away from my transplant date, submerging myself even deeper into “Society,” each doctor’s visit continues to rip open the scars of uncertainty. The walls of security I have been attempting to lay brick-by-brick  for the past two years crumbles in increasing speed as I get closer and closer to the examination table. The mortar was never quite as sturdy after diagnosis. 

Half-way through the hour-long drive to my appointment, my synapses fire and illuminate the memories of prior appointments. We have made this drive before. However, the rocking of the car as it hits the various cracks in the road now leaves us worried about tire alignment rather than the alignment of my mouth with a throw-up bag.

I am able to stave off the beasts of negativity that paw at the edges of my confidence until we reach the Cancer Center. I will be ok. As my Mom and I get out of the car, I wonder if the parking attendants can tell which one of us is the patient. It was obvious before. My back hunched at the weight of my bare head. The raised outline of my exposed chest catheters. I was not like the Others.

Where I once shuffled across the Cancer Center’s entryway, I now take long strides. The pants that were once baggy now cling to my hips and thighs. The ghostly voice of my previous eating disorder softly calls in my ear, attempting to fill me with premature guilt for the progress we’ve made. The nagging voice is drowned out as I walk past the wall of people in the car pick-up line.

I stand tall above the countless wheelchairs that offer assistance to more than half of those waiting for whichever chariot will whisk them away from more bad news or scan orders. For a moment I see figments of my previous self seated amongst the group. Frail, broken, wanting to go home. 

I clutch my Independence a bit tighter as I walk through the familiar doors, no longer the only one wearing a mask for my protection. No longer wrapped in jackets and beanies in 80-degree weather. I am not like the Others.  

As I check into the BMT clinic, the Receptionist who has greeted us warmly for the past three years furrows her brow and asks for my name, unable to recognize me from behind the mask and full head of hair. My stomach sinks a little. I know the mask doesn’t help, but I no longer feel like a “regular” at the place that served as a second home for the better part of two years.

The clinic has seemingly moved on to more pressing patients, but I am not sure if I have moved on with it. Memories linger in every corner of this room like ghosts. I recall where I sat for my first BMT appointment. Where I staved off nausea before my second infusion. Where I waited to be rebuilt in more ways than one.

My Mom and I take a seat, noting how much quieter it is due to Covid protocols. I look to the check-in desk and scan the room, attempting to assess how many patients are ahead of me. Old habits. I don’t recognize any of the check-in personnel, another reminder that the world has continued on. When my time comes, I offer my wrist to the New Face at Desk 2, struggling to hold up the crumbling facade of “OK-ness.”  

As I am banded by the Bouncer of Blood, the final bricks from what I had been building (for the umpteenth time) over the past 6 months evaporate. My poker face barely holding on, saved by the fact that now only my eyes need to sell my fake sense of security. I breathe a bit harder through my mask and allow the lens fog to cover up what my soul cannot. 

Now, only a bracelet gives me away as the patient. I play with it on my wrist, and it reminds me that I am 28-yrs-old. I remember when it read “25”… and then “26”… and then “27.” Most people have old movie tickets in their keepsake boxes as reminders of years past. I have various medical memorabilia.

As my name is called from the Nurse’s Station, I stand up and walk through the doors that have transported me into immense fear, joy, and confusion over the past few years. It is lost on me that I am not light-headed from the sudden shift in altitude. Today I have forgotten where I came from. 

The lead Nurse, a trainee when I was a “regular,” asks how I have been. A question that is just vague enough to hide whether or not they do remember me. “Doing well!,” I say, perhaps a bit too eagerly, as if maybe we’ll go get a coffee to catch up after we get through the blood formalities. 

They motion to the scale. I take off my shoes, jacket, and empty my pockets, not wanting to give that semi-dormant voice in my head even more impetus to awake. I look anywhere but the number, hoping the Nurse doesn’t announce how much weight I have or haven’t gained since our last visit. The scale beeps, content with the amount of space I take up on this Earth. Numbers are jotted down, nothing is said. We are safe for now, the voice can continue to sleep. 

I offer my index finger as the Nurse wraps the blood pressure cuff around my arm. I still know my way around a vitals collection…My fingers gently pull my mask below my chin as I offer the underside of my tongue for the thermometer. We’ve come a long way since my first time, when I pulled my mask over my eyes to allow the Nurse access to my mouth…(We laughed.)

We walk over to the collection room where the Nurse will harvest my blood. I hop in the chair, quickly unzipping my port shirt and wiping the Emla cream from my chest. The skin tingles from where the numbing cream sat all morning.

I make small talk, hesitating before I ask how the Nurse has been doing. The New York Times has filled in many of the blanks as to how the medical industry has been lately…The Nurse cracks open the alcohol applicator and the familiar smell punctures my mask. My heart starts beating a bit faster as the scratchy sponge trails the cold liquid over my port site. 

After a few moments pass, and the alcohol has evaporated from my skin, the Nurse begins the count down from three before plunging the syringe into my port. I exhale as I feel nothing, the nerves fast asleep. I try to relax, something one of my earlier nurses explained is important for easy blood return. 

No return. The Nurse begins pumping the syringe in hopes of breaking through the hold, the catheter in my neck quivering with each injection of hope and withdrawal of disappointment. Still nothing. I turn my head to the side. Pro tip from a different Nurse two years back. 

“When was the last time this was flushed?,” I am asked. 

“Uhh, a month or so ago?” (Give or take two months…)

I am prepared to stand up, a suggestion from a third Nurse I had early on in my treatment, but we finally get a return. I try to act cool, breathing away the flurry of dizziness that was starting to cull around the periphery of my brain. Hello Anxiety, my old friend. 

“You doing ok?”

The question that always left me with more anxiety. My brain ignites for one final spin, the edges of the room darkening a bit. 

Shit. I inhale. The spinning slows enough for me to nod my head and give a shallow, “Uh huh!” 

After three years you’d think this would be easy. 

The Nurse seals me up and sends me back through the doors to the waiting room. My Mom looks up as I approach, asking if everything went alright. We’ve had faster blood draws in previous visits…

“Just a sticky port.” 

My Mom suggests that maybe I should get it flushed more than once every three months.

“Yeah.” 

I know I won’t. 

I brought my backpack with me to do work, but I look around instead, observing those who came before and after me. 

The familiar muffled sounds of HGTV take off the slight edge of fatigue and anxiety that fills the room. The lady two chairs over holds her husband’s banded hand tightly, as if it is all she has and is about to lose.

The man across the room nods off, his nervous wife looks around uneasily. They are called into the conference room reserved for social worker visits. The room where I was asked if I had a last will and testament and encouraged to prepare one. I am not like the Others. 

Phones ring, the office’s holiday tree is now adorned with shamrocks for the month of March, life moves on. We are called back and led to examination room 2b. The room where my stem cell treatment all began. Only my Mom is with me this time. They don’t need to drag in extra chairs from the hallway for the rest of my family. 

But there I sit, waiting for the Nurse to come in and rattle off the list of 10 pills I used to take but have yet to say that I no longer do. I’m not sure why I don’t correct them. Maybe it’s fear that the minute they are removed from my chart is when they’ll be added back on. Maybe I cling to my identity as “Patient” and all that comes with this title. Maybe I forgot what it means to not have a pharmacy as a nightstand.

My Mom and I fill the time with crossword puzzles. 

“1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album?” 

Mom fills in the blanks effortlessly. 

“Huh,” I say curiously as I look at the answer.

Before I can admire the poetry of the moment too much, the handle jiggles a millisecond before the door opens, disrupting the vacuum of calm anticipation that had fallen thickly over the room. 

A peppy Nurse I’ve never met before (we’ll call her Joy), walks in and introduces herself. This is beginning to feel like the fourth season of a spin-off series.

Joy asks how I’ve been and eagerly takes notes. The exchange is much shorter than it used to be. I no longer have chemo-induced hives or insomnia to inquire about. I merely work long hours and eat a lot of ice cream. My issues read like a headline for US Weekly rather than a CVS receipt. I am not like the Others. 

Joy nods sympathetically as I talk about work. I try to keep the venting short, again thinking back to the New York Times articles. She collects her notes and says the doctor will be right in. The thick blanket of anticipation settles back over the room with the sharp click of the door handle behind Joy. 

“Eggs for fertilization…three letters…” my Mom reads aloud, shifting the focus away from the impending results and back to the black and white checkerboard. 

“Ova,” I offer. My mom nods as she fills in the blanks.  

“Speaking of, has the fertility clinic sent this year’s bill for your egg storage?,” my Mom asks.

“Not yet.”

I am not like the Others. 

Each minute that passes by waiting for the Doctor to arrive sinks my stomach a little further as if it was an internal game of Battleship and my immune system has already taken out my freighter. We have been here before. There’s a certain assumption that you won’t be seen on time. The ill outnumber the saviors. 

But after a certain threshold of tardiness, your prognosis starts dipping. Once a delay in visitation has been caused by your failing immune system, you will always assume this is the case, even if it is because of someone else’s failing immune system… or merely bad traffic. 

We are connected in more ways than we often realize, us Cancer Patients. Connected through the unspoken understanding of what it’s like to look at ourselves in the mirror each morning, to stare into our sunken eyes and pale scalps. Connected through the communal assumption that we all have contributed way too many medical ID bracelets to various trash heaps and memory boxes. Connected by the fact that one medical hiccup in our daisy-chain of neighboring appointments ultimately triggers a prolonged day for the next patient.  And so the dominos tip.

Yet, for an experience that binds us beyond words, we still often feel so alone. We are not like the Others. 

Those who love us profoundly do not completely understand (unless they have unfortunately been handed a diagnosis themselves).  They see, they witness, they pray. They get close. But they fortunately do not share the full gamut of our mental wear. They have their own mental hills to climb, hills that presented themselves when we were inducted into this warped club. Yet, I’m not sure if they can fully understand the hesitancy in making plans we share or how even in moving forward, we continue to look over our shoulder, ensuring the Beast remains dormant for another day. We are simultaneously running from our diagnoses and relapses while chasing a time that seems to have picked up the pace from when we were last “Normal.” When mortality was not thrown in our faces.

Our ignorant lens is shattered in diagnosis. We are made painfully aware of the fragile glass box we had existed in up until that defining moment of our lives. The light no longer bends around what we seem to only discover in old age and tragedy, and instead rests squarely upon the facade of fragility. We now more clearly see the thin line upon which we all delicately balance. 

While we attempt come to terms with this fractured lens, we are forged in chemical fire in an effort to fuse what was shattered. And if we are lucky, we can one day inhale deeply, our lungs filling with the air of the shifting seasons as our futures broaden beyond the next few hours, days, weeks…

We are not like the Others. 

I now understand what it means for the young to feel immortal, since I no longer do. 

Remission has left me split between two selves. The Patient who did the heavy lifting to get us to this point, whose physical suffering has ended and should celebrate. And the Survivor, who has been handed a second chance and is unsure of what to do with it.  The Patient had a clear directive, to Survive. The Survivor must develop their own. Once you fight for one more breath, what do you fight for next? 

“Dinglehopper?,” my Mom reads aloud. 

“Fork.” 

With each appointment, a jagged fragment of me wants to be told that I have relapsed. I can’t shatter from what I desire.

I no longer trust my body, so my mind invites the tragedy before someone else can. Fool me once…

Yet, the much larger part of myself fears what the odds say I may face again. A mere inflection or trailing inquiry about my lymph nodes and night sweats has me gripping the armrest of the examination table tighter than I would normally. (I feel Unremarkable. Right? This is what Unremarkable feels like. I hope this is what Unremarkable feels like.) 

We’ve been remarkable for so long that we’ve forgotten what it means to feel “normal.”

There is a silent resilience to being in remission that places you in the grey. You are expected to move on, as if you are a butterfly that needs to prove there was some transitory reason you were one of the lucky few chosen for this fight. As if you have two pairs of wings to pick from during your cancer treatment: the pair you discover after awaking from a deep sleep and the pair you are only awarded if you never wake up. 

I spread my newfound “wings,” only to realize that I never learned how to fly. I tell myself that I cannot complain, since I have gone through things worth complaining about. So I remain in the shadows, observing and noting. Trying to subdue the voices of frustration for being where I am, knowing that where I am is a gift.

“Beloved fairytale by J.M. Barrie?,” my Mom offers. 

“Peter Pan?” 

The handle of the door jiggles slightly before the door opens to begin my Doctor’s visit.

I inhale deeply as my Mom and I look at each other. She squeezes my hand. 

I am not like the Others.