When "it" knocks on the door of your home, your world leaves the known universe and enters the cataclysmic turmoil of a exploding supernova, where all is upside down, inside out, panic taking over security, can't breath, can see going thousand miles per hour the big wall in front until we crash and we float in nothingness, utterly alone.
Afterward, when our universe is restored, we tell her...
Dear wife:
In the old days, it was not as much as referring to an illness but to a kind of shameful secret in the mist of the family; even to the extreme to nearly hide the old aunt under the bed if somebody other that a member of the family came for a visit.
We have gone a long way since.
No that we treat the illness lightly, but we acknowledge its existence, the need for care and absolutely not a dead sentence per se, feeling that the good doctor was Hanging Judge Bean sending you to the dead row to wait for “it”.
You hear of people that had it and today go about their lives kicking things forward, into the future.
They are the lucky ones.
But few and few are losing the battle because they are fighting back and because science is helping a lot.
But, anyway…
After a regular yearly checkup my wife was send from our local medical ward to the big house with the knives, and we didn’t knew why.
We drove there and she disappeared in one of the elevators.
I don’t remember how long I waited, but I wasn’t expecting anything “really” wrong, after all she had been careful that she and her family was monitored by the good doctors yearly.
But, for whatever reason they missed her.
Suddenly she was walking towards me in the waiting hall and the first thing I noticed was her pink-rimmed eyes behind the glasses that enhanced the two tears trying to go out.
“I have cancer, they wanted to operate immediately,” she said.
In a split of a second after hearing what had should have been a dead sentence, I felt not the punch of Cassius Clay in the pit of my stomach nor the ice cold hand grabbing my heart, but my wife size shrinking into a scared little sparrow wishing to hide somewhere inside me.
I didn’t scare the jeebeezes of everybody around that hall by howling at the ceiling WHY!!! WHY!!!, I just put my arm around her shoulders and told her that all was to be well.
I didn’t say it formality way, I felt it one hundred per cent.
I wished to transmit that feeling to the other half of my everyday existence, I wasn’t grabbing at straws…or were I?
In the Operation Room she die twice.
And twice she was shocked back after a few minutes of frantic work (you have seen it on TV’s ER) and landed at last, in the Intensive Care Unit after many hours of chirurgic work.
She had a bad time.
She still had a bad time afterwards.
I wished that my bad time then, could be switched with hers.
I had thrown to the wind all the previous one hundred per cent security feelings that all was gone to be well after Murphy’s Law had been working overtime in her illness.
For a long time I swam up from the bottom of a mud pit with my arms getting tired but not wishing to give up, with the hope getting smaller and smaller until, if it fell on the floor, I was to be incapable to see it, less to find it again.
Then, as suddenly as the cancer invaded on our lives, I swam up from the deeps and broke into the surface seeing the sun again because she was smiling.
The winter outside was at its worst, 20 Celsius below and going fast even lower, the snow was like cake-icing but I was so relieved and so warm inside that I was sure could smelt it with every step I took.
We were not out of the woods yet, but we could smell the newly baked bread of everyday.
And the little sparrow still needed my arm around the shoulders, not to be comforted but to feel tenderness.
Cancer was said like a four letters word (OK it has six, so what?), and people used to whisper it like they were talking about terrible secrets about the Pope behind his back.
But cancer also does something with people. My wife got converted from a fragile-human that was attacked to an iron will that could be bend but not broken.
As much has I hate the cancer for what it did to her, I love her for what she did to the cancer.
And next time, wife of mine, when a horrible little insect in the curtain threatens you; don’t tell me to do something; after what you did to the cancer…
…you are on your own.
...wonderful story Georg...yes...just went through it with my father...I was with him...just lost him. Thank you for my first review...first on AuthorsDen...thank you. john
I was diagnosed in 96 and never went back to a hospital again, just used old folk remidies, if it ever comes back, I don't think i'll fight as hard. I'm ready.
Reviewed by LadyJtalks LadyJzTalkZone
7/25/2007
Thank you for sharing this heart felt story. You still have to kill the invaders on the curtains. It's in the fine print. Lady J
A gut-wrenching story George, and yet one that also fills the inspirational need within hearts and souls who understand the trials and journey of this desease...we have seen it's battles within our own...you write with depth and show us the love of one for another from within your own journey....
exceptional piece.....
Art Sun....
Reviewed by ~ Holly Harbridge
7/25/2007
You are such a loving man, strong, faithful, devoted to the love of your life. Your story although sad, is a powerful one Georg. Thank you for sharing this with us. God Bless, love Holly
These timeless quotations culled from the celebrated corpus of writings by W.E.B. Du Bois are presented with illuminating introductory essays by Aberjhani. Narration of the Audible book performed by Catherine Byers.
I have written a chapter called I Am That, I Am in this inspirational compilation book by best-selling authors and wonderful people from all walks of life xox :-D (Its sister book is called Adventures In Manifesting - Success and Spirituality)
