The old man in the mirror

 

In the floor-to-ceiling mirrors of the cardio room at the Islands YMCA, I watch myself doing chair yoga, an activity I truly loath.

Out of pure love with a sense of adventure I went with Sarah once. It was fucking torture and, advocate that I am, I let it be known laying on the floor screaming in agony.

Sarah giggles which gets April Moore laughing and pretty soon the class is disrupted and I swear I'll never do yoga again!

But there's a "Live Strong" program for cancer survivors and, out of pure love, with a new sense of adventure, Sarah talks me into joining.

So I watch myself being tortured in a chair with soothing words flowing from the epitome of health backed by Native American music emulating from somewhere.

Facing the wall of mirrors it's impossible to not look at ourselves though the instructor calmly tells us to close our eyes.

I'd fall out of the chair if I close my eyes so I look at everyone else who's eyes are shut.

On either side of me are six other survivors, who are all old.

The looks on each face clearly indicate they're also being tortured, grimacing while clutching for dear life with knuckles long turned white.

"Live Strong!" our leader yells encouragingly.

"Live sore," someone mutters and I giggle, meaning I can't lift my right arm while wrapping my left leg around my head, so I stop participating.

"Inhale," the lovely voice invites, "while placing your kneecaps against your earlobes."

I stare in the mirror to watch the survivors actually try!

None come close, of course, which makes me giggle again.

Thank God I got high before coming!

Again concentrating on the mirror I see myself as I am, not as I imagine me with complete disregard for reality, but the thin on top, long grey hair, white bearded, skinny, old man with a stomach that strangely tilts to the right.

I sigh, attempt to rejoin the torture but quickly stop wishing I'd brought a gummy.

Mercifully, yoga ends and we're shepherded to a classroom.

The survivors use this time to check each other out and I can see in their eyes they're also wondering why everyone else in the class is old except them.

"Is this the onset of dementia," I wonder?

"What does everyone do to relieve tension?" we're asked to share.

"I meditate."

"I play classical music."

Everyone looks at me.

"I smoke a lot of weed," I giggle.

"Did you bring any?" four of the six survivors ask.

The epitome of health again unleashes her calming voice to sprinkle meditative words nudging us towards inner peace.

I wonder what Sarah's doing?

I notice everyone's eyes are closed and it's quiet.

Somehow I missed the instructions that we're meditating now.

I want beer for lunch but it's a non drinking day and my arms will probably be too sore to raise a glass anyway.

We're dismissed and encouraged to use the gym before the next class but everyone laughs.

In the parking lot, I'm first in my car and use the opportunity to watch the survivors walking out, slowly shuffling feet towards the lives we fight to hold on to.

The skies are the deepest of blues and a faded white moon hangs on for dear life too!

I take encouragement in this and head home for a quiet lunch with my wife, extremely grateful for the the sense of adventure and pure love awaiting me.

Chasing Normal

 

"I'm going to miss you, Da."

It's 5:30 in the morning and Che and I sit on the sofa in a sea of candles we've lit so our living room glows softly.

She's plays on her I-Pad as I listen to music streaming through ear buds, surfing Spodify. 

I look at Che who's looking at me.

"I'm gonna miss you too," I reply, smiling. She returns the grin before resuming her game.

I'm up most night dealing with side effects from Chemotherapy.  Che religiously gets up with me and I've grown to cherish the time before the sun smiles on another day.

She's also been having nightmares where I disappear and she can't find me. 

She cries. 

I comfort her. 

Then I cry because her dream will come true way before either of us is ready.

"I'm going to miss you Da," she repeats and I see her staring at me.

A tactic of counseling is when you hear something you don't understand, you repeat it hoping to draw more information from the client. I don't know what to do with Che's words so I repeat them to her.

"I'm gonna miss you Che."

She smiles, returning attention to her I-Pad.

Sarah and I work hard to make life "normal" for her while we navigate the treacherous waters of the American Health care system with a terminal diagnosis.

"Normal" means cancer isn't our primary focus so we get on with life as though everything's just as it should be for a 5 year old girl. 

"You want some of 'Mom's favorite toast'?" I ask trying to regain control of normal.

"I'm gonna miss you Da."

Frustrated I respond louder than I intend, "Why are you going to miss me Che? What's happening?"

Her bright blue eyes dance in the candlelight.

"PRANK!" she gleefully explains. "I'm going to miss you at school today!"

"Why you!" I grin before tickling and hugging her tightly. 

She squeals happily in my arms.

"Life is good Che-Bay," I pronounce as though I'm extending an invitation to join us at the alter.

Living Strong

I come home from the Gym to find my wife writing my obituary

I find this ironic but read it anyway and it's pretty funny

We laugh and laugh

I suppose it's "coming soon" to a media platform where you may or may or see it one day

She hasn't finished it yet and I'm not in a rush

 

The Magi's Delivery

 

The pink envelope's plainly addressed to "Che" and she's gleefully ripping it open.

Other than the postcards from the road Keith Rea sends, which are always fun, and the junk mail Sarah gives her to open, Che receives little mail.

Packages arrive numerous times through the day because it's Christmas and the Pandemic shopping's all the rage because there's nothing on shelves in stores. Che wants each to be hers but they never are so she's over-the-moon excited ripping open the pink envelope with her name on it.

Exchanging glances and shrugging shoulders, Sarah nor I have a clue who's it from.

Her tiny hand reaches in and pulls out a locket and a tiny black and white computer generated photo of Sarah and me.

There's nothing else so we have no idea who's giving the gift.

Holding the tiny black-and-white picture in one hand, Sarah holds the locket to the light and grins.

"We're in here Che," she explains while demonstrating how to find us.

"Whoa," our daughter gasps.

Wrestling with demons inside our little girl wears a locket every day when she leaves for school with our pictures in it. 

She never forgets and the locket shows. It's scratched silver surface is perpetually open and my picture keeps disappearing reinforcing those demons she fights every day.

The new pendant is elegant, concise and safe.  Che can see Sarah and I anytime she wants by holding it towards the light.

Magi no longer have to travel when you have Google and Amazon at your disposal and without a return address we have no idea if they're from east or not.

But like Mary after the first royal gifts were given, Sarah and I hold this in our hearts.

In desperate need of escape

 “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says wistfully. “You?”

“Yeah.”

“Da, can I watch YouTube on your phone?”

Zach has taken our order and we’re watching blue lights on bows of boats making their way from the Ocean to the safety of harbor. 

Che props my phone against a ketchup bottle happy to be back in the modern world of cyberspace.

Sarah and I watch the boats glide through the clear waters of the Gulf while a rocking band plays ”Get Back” on the other side of the restaurant.  

There’s only one restaurant on the island but it closes at 4. Two others lay just across a rickidy bridge, easy walking distance from the old Florida retro hotel my wife found. 

We’re in desperate need of escape as we’re perplexed by words. 

“While the radiologists conclude growth, we find it marginal and recommend continuing treatment as it is. We find the margins acceptable. Another scan will be scheduled in 3 months instead of the 5 or 6 we’d anticipated.”

The written report says the “innumerable bipolar hepatic metastasis” are all new but the old cancer didn’t grow, a classic example of “Good News/Bad News.”

Here’s our question: What’s an acceptable growth rate on an innumerable number?

“Those boats are racing Che!” Sarah exclaims, trying to draw our daughter back into the real world. 

Che throws the phone on the table.  

Our food arrives and throughout the meal, we eat, drink and make merry.  

Che determinedly walks in the middle to hold both our hands as we make our way under a full moon across the narrow bridge. 

On the Beach, I watch Sarah intensely staring off into space as I regain focus from my own 3 mile stares.  

Che holds our hands everywhere we go as though in desperate fear of letting us go.  

Holding on for dear life I suppose. 

“Hey Da!” she says “let’s eat breakfast outside.”

Holding a bowl of frosted Cheerios in one hand she leads me to the Tiki Bar where we eat in the moonlight beside the Sea. In desperate need 

Just Us

 

“I haven’t been with Dad for a few minutes so I’m gonna stay with Dad.”

Che’s explaining why she’s not going to ride with Mom to get Pizza because that’s what we do on Friday nights at our house. 

Pausing in the doorway, Sarah smiles.  

“She’s with her old man till the end,” I grin. 

Che burrows her head in my chest, snuggling on the sofa, watching television after a full day of playing with her friends at school and here. They’ve all just left and now it’s just us for the evening.  

Life is mostly just us now.  

There’s little energy for anything else.  

Living with cancer sucks the energy out of Sarah and Che every bit as it does me. 

Che and I set the table while Sarah’s gone. Lighting a candle we opt for a romantic evening.  

“AH-REX-AH,” Che yells in the soft glow of the Living Room,” “PRAY CHRISTMAS
MUSIC!”

“Here’s a station you might like,” suggests the feminine automated voice as Karen Carpenter rises from the grave. 

“Merry Christmas Darling” fills the room with lights dancing on the walls.  

Che grins, dancing in place, and we’re proud because supper together should always be the most joyful of the day.  

Sarah smiles and we dive in.  

“Mom! Aren’t you going to ask me what I did at school today?”

With a mouth full of her first bite, Sarah asks, “What did you do at school today?”

Fifteen minutes later, I watch the two of them making Christmas presents for Che’s teachers as leftovers are pushed to the side. 

Christmas carols softly play.  

Candlelight dances.  

The girls make gifts.  

Soon we learn if the Chemo is working. It’s tough making plans for every conceivable result. Since cancer’s hostile takeover of our lives 2 years ago, all the news has been bad. We’re conditioned to believe it’s not going to be any different this time.  

I solemnly sit watching, soaking it all in, trying to remember each sight, scent, feeling, taste, touch, caress and moment of joy.  

“Christmas time is coming” Emmylou Harris warns over Alexa, breaking the Holy moment into a thousand pieces.  

Sarah smiles, catches my eye and without words we share a thousand things.  

“What do you want for Christmas?” she asks.

“Everything!” Che gleefully exclaims.  

“Me too,” I agree, as we clean the dishes and get our daughter ready for her bath.

Laughing to Live

 

“Babes, look here,” I tell Sarah who’s sitting on the sofa, beautifully exhausted, doing a thousand things at once on her phone. 

All of her focus is on me as Her hands freeze in place and her eyes peer over the phone directly into mine. 

“Remember how I have these two lines on my face? I was trimming my beard and, LOOK!! Now I have two more!”

Staring intently at me, steal blue eyes let me know things she already she knows.  

“Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything about that.”

“Hmmm,” I ponder, staring outside. 

“What?”  

“That explains why Johnny didn’t tell me how good I look this morning.”

John O’Neil stopped by earlier to give me something.  We’ve been friends a long time with a rich history of sharing lots of things and, knowing I hate it, he always greets me with, “Hey Mikey! You look great!” 

“John didn’t tell you? He always tells you,” Sarah gasps, sitting up in mock alarm, “he must see the new lines on your face too!”

We laugh because it’s where we find the humor. 

Laughing is living without caution or care and we crave it because there’s nothing like living!

“I don’t want you guys to die Daddy,” Che confides, crawling in my lap to watch television. 

“I know,” I sigh, hugging her.  

Every morning our 5 year old daughter gets up between 2 and 4 to be with me.  Like her mother, Che knows things I don’t know yet and she lavishes me with love cuddling until the sun comes up.  

She wears a locket with mine and Sarah’s picture in it, kisses our photos often so the clasp’s broken and her heart pendent‘s perpetually open.  

“Da,” she explains, “I lost you again today.“ 

This is the second time my picture’s fallen out.  Sarah quickly finds another image to replace me and I’m glad to still be part of the family.

“She hears everything we say,” Sarah sighs after Che’s gone to sleep.  

“Yeah,” I sadly agree.  “Who knows what all she feels inside?”

We fall silent unable to completely process our daughter’s fears because we’re both already consumed with our own. 

Masters of words, Sarah and I struggle mightily finding the right ones now, but every once in a while they come easily enough.  

“SARAH LOOK!” I yell. 

Her hands freeze in place and her eyes peer over the box of Christmas decorations she’s trying to unpack.

I’m standing in the doorway with the jeans that fit me for the last few years crumpled over my feet because they literally slid down my waist. 

Che laughs when she sees this.

Sarah does too.  

Then I join them.  

Sarah finds the words.  

“We have to get you some new jeans.”   

My Thanksgiving caregivers

 “I get up with you Da.”

“No, it’s 4 in the morning and you got up with me yesterday.  You have to sleep. It’s a big day,” I explain, brushing hair out of her face, searching for her blanket in the dark. 

Grabbing my hand she slides out of bed and we stumble into the Living Room, light candles, snuggle on the sofa, and watch television.  

“Be right back,” I shoot, quickly returning to the bathroom where I’d spent the better part of the last hour. 

Back on the sofa, Che patiently waits. 

She’s become quite the caregiver.

“Can you make it Dad?” she asks, holding my hand, leading me to her room because she knows I’m struggling with queasiness. 

“I get it for you Dad,” she smiles, rushing from the sofa to grab my juice as I fight to get up. 

“I love you Dad,” she says, leaving her friends in the backyard to find me standing in the front yard talking to Sarah about impossible arrangements.  

We both stop and stare. I wonder what possesses our little girl to leave the friends she desperately begged to have over and find me to remind me I’m loved.  

“Maddie comes home today,” she says when I resume cuddling on the sofa.  “I am so excited.”

And I am too this Thanksgiving!

I have lots to be thankful for, not the least being my early morning caregiver. 

There’s lots more though.  

It’s hard knowing where to start. 

And I don’t want to waste time counting my blessings when I’m celebrating the one I’m holding. 

I hope that’s your Thanksgiving too.

Why waste time counting things when you can hold love in your hands?

“Want marshmallows Dad?” Che asks. 

She has a bag of the green shamrocks, pink hearts, orange clovers and yellow moons someone gave her for her birthday.  

“For breakfast?”

“Yeah,” she nods.  

“Sure,” I shrug.  

“Let’s get them together,” she smiles, pulling me off the sofa. 

Che’s Locket

Che twirls a locket with our pictures in it around her neck. 

She’d asked for one after seeing it on “A for Adley”which is sort of reality TV for kids. 

Once when we couldn’t take her to school because I had to be at the Mayo Clinic, Sarah used the locket so she feels close to us whenever she needs.  

“This way,” Sarah explained, “whenever you need Mom and Dad, we’re already hugging your neck when you open it up.”

She’s worn it to school ever since. 

This is her, wearing the locket, masked-up-for-school, sitting beside me on the sofa watching a movie called “Leap.”

Che is a dancer, takes ballet at Gretchen Green Dance Studios and loves to cut a rug, or a sofa in her case, as our daughter flies through the air showing off her moves.  

Sarah’s getting ready for the day still so Che and I hang out watching the movie. 

The locket is broken, either because she opens and closes it a thousand times a day or it flies off her neck when she dances, slamming on the floor. 

Which is often. 

My pictures already fallen and been replaced once. 

Like Sarah herself, her picture has remained a constant, unyielding source of beauty, comfort and assurance.  

My replacement photo is too big so all Che sees are my eyes, nose, and smile peering out like a clown trying to squeeze his face into a jar.  

“You look silly,” she explains when she sees me looking at it just now writing this.  

“I do,” and we cuddle more.  

I snap the picture and she resumes watching the movie. 

Staring out the window, I see colors dance in the sky just above the tress, as choirs of light sing in jubilation to the rising of the sun as the darkness retreats. 

My life is most surreal, watching it take place, sitting on a bench, wanting to keep up and play but unable and, increasingly, unsure of myself. 

Che shifts her head, laying it on my shoulder and sighs loudly. 

I’m not alone on the bench. 

“Morning,” Sarah sings floating into the kitchen defeating the choirs of dancing colors and the majestic rising sun for my attention.  

The past few weeks were especially tough as we wrestle with the darkness cancer brings to families and we needed a break. 

Just in time, God threw us a lifeline and we had the nicest weekend.  It was just the 3 of us enjoying life and each other.  And Laurel stopped by for a couple of seconds too!

To top it off, some special friends gifted Thanksgiving dinner next week so Sarah wouldn’t have to worry about it! 

We have lots to be thankful for and I’m especially excited this year. 

But now it’s back to school, work and the Mayo Clinic for more Chemo. 

Che kisses her locket. 

I kiss Che. 

Standing over the sofa, Sarah kisses both of us as light floods the living room of our home. 

 Honestly Dad didn't join the Marines out of some great sense of patriotism but to get the Hell out of his parents house.

The Marines happened to be the branch of military that would accommodate 17 year old's with such a problem.

In the blink of an eye, Dad was marching with Dog Company and off to Korea where he was captured twice, escaping both times until he was shot but found by another group of GI's, taken to a Hospital, processed and shipped back home.

While he was there he was assigned, after volunteering for it, as the only white guy in a group tasked with gathering the wounded and dead after a battle.

It helped him later land a job at Fountain's Funeral Home back in Port Wentworth Georgia where he again lived with the folks he was desperate to get away from.

Throughout the rest of his life he had a Love/Hate relationship with the military.

He was proud of the Marines but loathed war. 

He'd watch war movies wiping tears from his eyes during the killing yet cheer when the good guys won.

A Marine tattoo adorned his right arm though he never showed it off or called attention to it.

He shied away from gatherings with his fellow Veterans but when I drug him kicking and screaming to the dedication of the Savannah Korean War monument he hugged his fellow Vets and they cried together touching the engraved names of their friends who didn't make it back.

That's my last memory of him as a Veteran.

He was ready to go on to the next assignment soon afterwards.

Watching the pomp and circumstance of Veterans Day, I remember how his service changed him and I'm exceedingly thankful he took the turns he did.

I lean much more to the pacifist, peacemaker side of foreign policy decisions but also have the grit to dig in and fight back when justice is greedily provoked.

So Happy Veterans Day Dad, if that's such a thing. You never cared much for it but I find myself grateful for what you gave, and the others too, how the experience changed you and the lessons you left, not so much through words but through the ways you lived with it all afterwards.

Bless you and the rest of them too.