Yesterday I met and reconnected with an old old friend; a beautiful friend that I had given up ever seeing again.
There were some glitches. But not the kind you’d expect.
We have the kind of friendship where we can fall easily into a conversation, no matter how much time has passed since our last talk. For over forty years there has always been an ease that needs no explanations and blurs all time and distance.
The strangest part of yesterday’s surprise visit is that I’ve been seeing this friend quite regularly since her brain cancer diagnosis at the beginning of July. But each time I saw her, more and more of her had disappeared. She was getting angry, chippy, brittle. Her affect had flattened. Her eyes were darker and often hard.
She was more often polite and bitter toward me than anything else or I was met with a cold anger. I told myself this was the natural progression of the brain cancer. I said things to myself like, we die by degrees, I can still be her friend by being there for her children, I don’t have to visit her if it just antagonizes her, all of this ugly behaviour is helping me to let go, I’ve already had my goodbyes and deep down she knows I love her.
But on Sunday afternoon, all those platitudes and self-assurances were blasted to bits with one moment of real recognition. Because, in spite of some obsessive moments where she’d get caught in a worrying cul-de-sac, I was given the opportunity to see my old friend again.
She sat on her bed, one leg tucked under her. She had tears in her eyes, tears that frequently slid down her cheeks from her open and kind eyes. She was completely present and accounted for; this lifelong friend who knows all my secrets. My friend, who can snort and guffaw as loudly as I do, my friend who gives heart-to-beating-heart mother bear hugs, my friend that I thought had long ago disappeared, was sitting right in front of me, revealed in the rainy-day dimness of her hospice room. Her hug, her kiss on my cheek, it was all like it used to be.
Oh my God.
Kathleen, I loved you and I still love you and I’ve missed you more than I allowed myself to know.
Do you remember how we kept saying this is ridiculous when we first got your diagnosis? This, we’d say with random emphasis, as we sat in the Cancer Clinic waiting room, THIS is rid-ICK-u-LOUS! Over and over we’d roll our eyes and shrug at this insane situation we’d found ourselves in. What a pickle eh? Here we are and you have freakin’ brain cancer! What are the odds! This IS RID-ick-U-lous.
And each day it got more bizarre. Or more correctly, each day, you became more bizarre and too quickly an alien version of you replaced the friend I’ve known all my life.
I am so thankful for yesterday’s chance to see you again. I don’t know how long this new drug, Avastin, will work. They told us it would help bring back the ‘old Kathleen’ for a little while, and then, like the chemo and radiation, it would eventually cease to be effective. And then?
And then…
So although I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to see the real you again, I am so grateful for Sunday’s visit and heart-connecting hug.
I was even more shocked when you called later as Kevin and I sat waiting for the ferry.
You said, “Hey…it’s me and guess what? Nothing’s going on.” I could hear the laughter in your voice. I could imagine the twinkle in your eye at your own joke. Most of all, you hadn’t reverted to that other version of yourself. Hours had passed and it was still you.
I knew the subtext of your words. Look, you were saying, there’s no drama, no anger. Just a short call and connection.
“There’s peace in the valley,” you said, and then, “I love you pumpkin.”
And then, dear God, you hung up, leaving me curled into myself in the front seat of our car, once again stunned at the physical pain of grief.
I love you too pumpkin. I always will.
Oh Colleen, I am SO happy you got to see your friend again! What a heartfelt post. Yes, like everyone else who read this, I’m crying into my Slim Tea this morning. But it’s a good cry. It’s a cry of gratitude, of the gift you’ve been given. Bittersweet as it is, I know. It’s such a reminder of what’s important in our lives. We so easily forget how fleeting it all is. How important the people in our lives are. How easily it can be taken from us. My heart is heavy and light at the same time, if that makes any sense.
Love you, Colleen. You are a good friend. Sending huge bear hugs your way. Hope to see you soon.
Yes Gwen, your heart feeling both heavy and light at the same time makes perfect sense. I feel such a sense of awareness in each encounter, a sense that this is it, this is all of it and we need to be paying attention to the small joys that make up our days. Drinking tea, warm socks, good friends, and connecting to each other with hugs, both cyber and in person. Bless you.
Colleen, today my Mom gave me a news article about a new treatment for the very kind of brain tumor that took my Dad 15 years ago. I don’t know if this is a coincidence or divine intervention. I don’t know what sort of tumor that Kathleen has or if she can travel, but just in case, the story is by Crystal Chew of TNS. Dr. Ricardo Komotar of the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center injects “sodium fluorescein, an FDA-approved drug that illuminates brain tumor tissue”. This makes it much more effective to operate. The patient in the article was given 6 months with his glioblastoma; it has been over a year and an MRI scan shows no evidence of a tumor.
Maybe, just maybe. . .
Oh Jana. First of all, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathies at the loss of your father to this horrible disease. It is such a crazy ride for everyone connected to the person with the disease.
I wish there was something else that could be done for Kathleen but we’ve been told that the original tumour has doubled in size and, because of where it has spread, it is inoperable. Apparently operating would cause too many ‘deficits’.
Having said that, I am going to look this article up and forward it to the clinic to see what they think.
Colleen I sit here sobbing and wiping tears from my face. If you could steal your friend away from her current life circumstances and restore her to her previous self, you would have already done this. By standing by her, even when she has become someone you do not know, you rise to a new level of magnificence (even tho it may not feel like it.) The vow of friendship makes the words of a marriage union ’til death do us part’ ring so true. How wonderful that she was able to remind you of this, in her own special way.
Thank you for sharing!
Shirley, thank you for your insights. I hadn’t really looked at this from the ‘vow of friendship’ perspective, but that really is what this feels like. I like this way of framing it, even though you’re also right, that I don’t feel like I’m at any level of magnificence.
tears rolling, chest tight, grief and joy mixed, so happy you could see and talk and BE with her. I got to speak on the phone with Irene on her last day . It was an honor. I think of her and our few visits near the end when I read your experiences with Kathleen. My heart is with you.
So glad she came back to you even if it’s just for a short time. Love how you describe your intimate friendship with her, how you connect with “an ease that needs no explanations and blurs all time and distance.” Priceless.
Blessings Martha. There are so many unexpected blessings between the random bouts of craziness that is our lives.
I’m trying so hard to remain focused on noticing the good stuff and weathering the rest.
Thank you for being part of my travels in all this. It’s so comforting to have company.
It’s magical, isn’t it, how that can happen. So lucky for you to be with her for that time when the effects of the growths in her brain fall away. A time to treasure.
I thought about you and your friend Kathleen Saturday night, lying on a gurney in VGH at 4am waiting for a CT brain scan after collapsing during dinner with friends on Granville Island. What about all those unfinished projects? Was that last argument with Mme really necessary?
Luckily for me it’s not my time just yet. All was normal, it was an unexplained faint – nothing more. But that brief unexpected interruption of consciousness is like a wedge opening up my awareness. Be here now, or as Woody Guthrie said “Clean teeth, if any”.
Oh my goodness. I don’t like the idea of you on a gurney at all, what a terrifying interuption and yes, an awakening to a new type of perspective. Suddenly everything becomes much clearer. It’s quite surprising what becomes unimportant and what really matters. I’m so glad you’re alright. Sending prayers, light, good vibes and whatever else I can conjure your way.
I am so crying right now. I love you both.
I love you too AnneLise. Every time I think I can’t possibly cry again…I get hit with another wave. No wonder grief is so often associated with a wild ocean. Sometimes I’m treading water and doing alright and then bam! another wall of water bashes in my face. In spite of it all, and by all I mean this thing called life with all its ridiculous variations, I know we will make it somehow. Perhaps a more eroded version of ourselves, but still, I believe we shall prevail.