reactions

People react in unexpected ways when you tell them you're partner may die soon.

I was amazed that some people to whom I feel REALLY close suddenly stopped calling. Some family members have reacted with the usual reassuring words but no sense of any kind of compassion or real heartfelt emotion.

Yesterday at the vegetable plot a woman I barely knew came up to say hello and asked about Tad. When I told her what had happened I began to weep uncontrollably. This short ex-school teacher with torpedo breasts just took me in her arms and held me while I cried.

Then she asked who would be taking care of the garden. When I told her that I wouldn't be making it there for at least a month given the chemo regimen, she assured me she'd talk to other neighbors and organize a gardening team to keep our garden weedless and watered.

I pointed out that the irrigation system was broke and they'd have to water by hand. She replied, "Oh show me which part and I'll get it fixed for you."

Maybe it's easier for strangers to be more loving and forthcoming. Maybe family members are just too damned close to be able to respond that way - I imagine they are going through what we went through about 4 days ago: shock and disbelief, mixed with anger and refusal.

One of my neighbors was clearly still at a stage which Tad and I had both gone through a few days ago. Let's call it the I-bet-I-can-find-a-hole-in-your-diagnosis Stage. Based on an old email she sat me down and tried to convince me that the pneumonia diagnosis was probably caused by a specious lung fungus she'd heard about on NPR that is floating around and is mostly escaping the watchful eye of medical doctors. I had to stop her mid-theory and tell her that she had missed a couple of trains and I had all the info necessary to debunk her idea.

Funny how we get so attached to these other ideas. The second night I stopped the oncologist dead in his tracks and confronted with all my reasons why I thought this was a lymphoma and not a leukemia -- all purely based on Google blitzkriegs (lymphomas are easier to treat and cure than leukemia). He listened carefully then responded that maybe I was right but that if it was a lymphoma it was a very aggressive one. I finished by saying, "And maybe this is just the part of me that wants to refuse this reality."

He was kind enough to just smile.

So here I sit in a hospital room with a million dollar view of the Golden Gate Bridge in awe of how life can change so quickly. I haven't cried once today whereas yesterday I couldn't stop. I went from sobbing non-stop over the fact that the love of my life may not be alive in a month to a sort of deep serenity today: this is what we are going through and any future tripping is a vain endeavor that can only lead to pain.

Breathing in the mystery of it all.