Day 2
I phoned Jamie. My cousin and I hadn't spoken in some time, and then only rarely. Each conversation, however, felt deeply familiar and easy. We were raised like siblings as our mother's are very close. We're all close. We didn't know we had a choice in the matter. Family is family.
He is the bullying older brother of my girlhood who made me choose between getting whacked with his right hand as it dangled over my head, or his left which shook expectantly at his hip. Who pushed me down stairs in a laundry basket when I was refusing to go and thus holding up the line-enter trauma leading to random stair phobia. Who made mashed potatoes fly out of my nose with a joke like a bullet ready to strike just dangling on the edge of his lips daring me to take another bite (a tradition, I'll add, which he recently bequeathed to his sons: This is Jessica. The Mark).
These are the stories that get told and retold in my family. And so, it becomes the story of you. We all, and by all I mean all, have stories that follow us around within the family. Just in case you have ideas of outgrowing your britches, these stories remind you that you were once just a little girl who put raisins on her shoes. For more on that story, see my Aunt Gaile.
My mother is the middle child in a family of 7: Nana (D) and Grandpa (D)--aka. Barbara and Jim Seufert had Roxanne, Gaile, Mom, and the twins, Terri and Mark. Various aunts and uncles have come and gone. Some have gone and come back. I am somewhere in the middle of 13 cousins.
Joshua and I were raised with Gaile's kids. We played soccer together - well, they played, I picked flowers in the field. We went to the Redwood City Fourth of July parade together. Went on road trips together. Saw each other for most birthdays and holidays, trips to Sea World and Great America. We're family. So, even though Jamie (Gaile's eldest) and I hadn't spoken in a while, when mom told me she sent her tests down to Jamie in order to get his honest opinion before she had to face the rest of the family, it made perfect sense to me. He's got that fancy Head Researcher job in Southern Cal doing something to cow brains for the good of genetic research, and he'll give mom a straight answer in that tender, sensitive way he has.
Before I phoned him, I wanted to be up on the terminology related to Pancreatic Cancer. I phoned the Pancreatic Cancer Society to get information on the best treatments available, the clinical trials, causes, stories, basic anatomy, everything I could stuff into my brain. I don't remember everything that was said. I do remember that in my research I had already read the life expectancy statistics before he said them out loud: 2-3 months without chemo and 4-6 with. I remember that he said again and again: If you ever need to talk, have questions or just need to scream, I'm here.
Mom confessed that Jamie was the one that told her with conviction: You have to tell the family. Not that there was any question of not telling them, it's just that she wasn't rushing to make the announcement. For the first time ever, I saw my mom turn so deeply inward that she wasn't rushing to take care of everyone through this. She answered her needs with quick provision and without constantly weighing the needs of everyone else. This, from the woman who made the best pesto I've ever had despite the fact that she hates pesto. She only realized a year or so ago that she often made food for others that she didn't particularly care for. My mother, as it turns out, was a very picky eater, she just never burdened anyone with it.
As she told me so often before in a kind of mantra of the self-actualized woman: It's okay to be high maintenance, as long as you can take care of yourself. Her rigidity to this anthem would soon be tested and I think the prospect of that vulnerability and dependency sparked her need to dive into the reaches of her person for the fortitude and courage this next season would require of her. As for me, I think I tried to dive in with her. Perhaps I'm still trying to crawl back out.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Day 149
We neared the Christmas season and Mom couldn't seem to get an appointment with her doctor at Kaiser. She had planned to come up to Seattle, since we had missed each other for Thanksgiving. But, her discomfort was rapidly worsening. She found herself not wanting to cook. Not wanting to see anyone or go anywhere. It didn't sound like her. Work became harder and harder.
Finally, in early January, she met with her doctor. Then came the waiting. The tests and the waiting. They're going to run some more tests, she said. MRI led to CAT Scans and blood work. More waiting.
It's the pancreas. They want a biopsy. I need you to listen now. You understand what this means, baby girl, right? She's crying, but firm.
Time thudded to a halt along with my heart. I entered a new kind of time. A time that truly had mastery over me. A feeling, I imagine, like being held hostage. The moment some poor soul captured by another accepts that control of their fate is not solely their own to toy with. It is seeing without delusion. But, that does not mean we are powerless. For power and control are not the same. The former is a true and vital part of being human. The latter, a mere mirage.
A biopsy. They want to do a biopsy, I told my husband. He had barely come through the door from one of his jobs, harried and exhausted. A biopsy, he confirmed disbelieving as he dropped his heavy bag on the living room carpet, still wet from cycling through Seattle rain. I was huddled into the couch under a blanket, a common scene these days. My face, red with the day's revelations. He dispelled the cloud of fear that hung about me with a few simple words: Well, I guess we're moving to California.
Mom and I have always been close. By close, I mean kindred. Connected by some deeper force than even we understood. I told her a long time ago, back when I thought I could change the world through some summer mission trip to Turkey, that I would come back from whatever far off place I had landed, and take care of her at the end of her life. Of course, I never imagined that it would happen so soon. Ben knew that I would be utterly miserable, the longer I had to stay away. He too wanted to be with her. She always got him.
So, again, we waited. Joshua came out to Woodside from his new condo in Vegas to be with mom after her biopsy. It meant so much to her to have him close. She kept telling me that she wouldn't have known how tell him otherwise. They've always been so similar, those two. They've had such a unique relationship.
I always say, I've always been more like dad trying to be more like mom and Joshua Paul was always so like her trying to be like dad. They have the same heart: tender, lion-strong and enormous to boot. The funniest similarity is that they both think we all can't see how gooey they are inside.
Day 1
On January 26th, 2012 mom had an appointment with an oncologist at Kaiser in Redwood City. That night, mom wanted to video chat with us to discuss the results of her biopsy. She wanted to tell us face to face. She wanted us to see how strong she is so we wouldn't have to be so afraid. Then, time went ahead and stood still. Through the blur of a trembling planet held in stasis, came these words like a slow-motion fall into a sea of stinging nettles:
I have cancer. There's a tumor on my pancreas and it spread to my liver. We're going to start chemo right away. We're going to fight it.
We stared at each other with our brave faces on. Ben held me close. I squeezed all my childhood fears into his hands till my knuckles burned. We all agreed to be strong, to fight and believe. I think that was the first time I ever really needed hope. I couldn't find it. Did I even know what it was?
I'm afraid, like Nietzsche, I believed: Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torment of man. Hope fell synonymous with naive, altruistic, denial, heartache. Perhaps those words are akin to hope. But if anything is possible like our darling Sagan says it is, then I suppose in some universe hope also might play a role. At the very least, I determined to think on it. To listen to hope as it came. To strive for a perspective on hope more like the Dalai Lama:
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Finally, in early January, she met with her doctor. Then came the waiting. The tests and the waiting. They're going to run some more tests, she said. MRI led to CAT Scans and blood work. More waiting.
It's the pancreas. They want a biopsy. I need you to listen now. You understand what this means, baby girl, right? She's crying, but firm.
Time thudded to a halt along with my heart. I entered a new kind of time. A time that truly had mastery over me. A feeling, I imagine, like being held hostage. The moment some poor soul captured by another accepts that control of their fate is not solely their own to toy with. It is seeing without delusion. But, that does not mean we are powerless. For power and control are not the same. The former is a true and vital part of being human. The latter, a mere mirage.
A biopsy. They want to do a biopsy, I told my husband. He had barely come through the door from one of his jobs, harried and exhausted. A biopsy, he confirmed disbelieving as he dropped his heavy bag on the living room carpet, still wet from cycling through Seattle rain. I was huddled into the couch under a blanket, a common scene these days. My face, red with the day's revelations. He dispelled the cloud of fear that hung about me with a few simple words: Well, I guess we're moving to California.
Mom and I have always been close. By close, I mean kindred. Connected by some deeper force than even we understood. I told her a long time ago, back when I thought I could change the world through some summer mission trip to Turkey, that I would come back from whatever far off place I had landed, and take care of her at the end of her life. Of course, I never imagined that it would happen so soon. Ben knew that I would be utterly miserable, the longer I had to stay away. He too wanted to be with her. She always got him.
So, again, we waited. Joshua came out to Woodside from his new condo in Vegas to be with mom after her biopsy. It meant so much to her to have him close. She kept telling me that she wouldn't have known how tell him otherwise. They've always been so similar, those two. They've had such a unique relationship.
I always say, I've always been more like dad trying to be more like mom and Joshua Paul was always so like her trying to be like dad. They have the same heart: tender, lion-strong and enormous to boot. The funniest similarity is that they both think we all can't see how gooey they are inside.
Day 1
On January 26th, 2012 mom had an appointment with an oncologist at Kaiser in Redwood City. That night, mom wanted to video chat with us to discuss the results of her biopsy. She wanted to tell us face to face. She wanted us to see how strong she is so we wouldn't have to be so afraid. Then, time went ahead and stood still. Through the blur of a trembling planet held in stasis, came these words like a slow-motion fall into a sea of stinging nettles:
I have cancer. There's a tumor on my pancreas and it spread to my liver. We're going to start chemo right away. We're going to fight it.
We stared at each other with our brave faces on. Ben held me close. I squeezed all my childhood fears into his hands till my knuckles burned. We all agreed to be strong, to fight and believe. I think that was the first time I ever really needed hope. I couldn't find it. Did I even know what it was?
I'm afraid, like Nietzsche, I believed: Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torment of man. Hope fell synonymous with naive, altruistic, denial, heartache. Perhaps those words are akin to hope. But if anything is possible like our darling Sagan says it is, then I suppose in some universe hope also might play a role. At the very least, I determined to think on it. To listen to hope as it came. To strive for a perspective on hope more like the Dalai Lama:
I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Day 144
Intro Cont...
I was just remembering the conversation mom and had one day after work in early December. I sat in the church parking lot behind our little house in Greenlake just north of Seattle and we talked. I told her that everything I know about the mother I want to be is in my memory of her. That means giving unconditional love selflessly, passionately and often to my children. It means giving them a home to be proud of, filled with laughter and an inexplicable warmth.
The kind of place that feels instantly like home, smells like home. Before you know it, your feet are up a drink is in your hand and your laughing louder than you have all day. It's a place where time stops, well, as long as we can manage it. In my mothers house, people catch themselves sighing. Breathing deeply. Wanting more. Wanting to stay and stay. People forget whatever else they had planned and simply linger. They forget what always seems to plague them. The remember who they are though. That's what light does. She is light.
You were a lioness, I exclaimed. Am I not that as well? You guarded us. You huddled us into your bosom and reared us alone for many years. How will I know how to share the task of parenting? What will keep me from guarding my children as you did?
I didn't want to be a lioness, she said. I had to be. You work in a flower shop. I could hear her smile: You have a beautiful husband who will be a wonderful father. You have a powerful community around you. You won't need to be the lion. And if you do, you'll know. Just trust yourself. You'll be magnificent. You'll be the flower child I didn't get to be.
It brought to mind this fable told to me by a dear friend, Katie who lost her mother from Pancreatic Cancer a couple of years ago. A fable she heard through a shaman in Seattle whom, I imagine, heard it from Nietzsche:
When we are born, we are camels. We drink and we drink. We drink in all that we can and store it. It is important that we drink in much, so that we may be large camels.
And, it is important to be a large camel, because when we reach the desert, as great a camel as we were, so we are great as a lion.
It is important to be a great lion, because we must cross the desert. And, when we reach the edge of the desert we must slay our dragon. The dragon is: Thou Shalt.
Once we slay our dragon, we become a child.
I've thought long about this story. I love old stories. I think I was born a lion. A desert child. And the desert was my home. The only home I knew or wanted or knew to want. I didn't know to hope for more. I became quizzically adept at guiding new born lions from one end of the desert to the next, offering pointers on how to locate, name and ultimately defeat their dragons whilst mine thrived from neglect. I remained paralyzed from a fear of my dragon. Little wisdom I have shared, have I consumed.
As I sat again on our porch, staring into the lake, I saw the evening light dance on the water. Street lights spraying pink, yellow and green lights in ticklish streaks down the black quivering surface. I followed the light, crisp and electric into the foggy blur of cloud cover reflecting hazy on the water. In that moment, the scene changed. The axis of the planet changed. The bright lines were not tracing the waters face, but pouring down an abysmal cliff face. The fog wasn't a gray mirror, but a billowing fog nestled in the basin of an interminable canyon. Perhaps it was the smoky breath of a dragon hidden beneath.
I felt dizzy. Turned my head. Restored my field of vision. But, then I couldn't help myself. I peered again into the pitfall and drenched in its possibility. A lair. Where my dragon hides. I want to see his face. I want to slay him. Let him surface, I called to the cavern. I summoned some haughty attempt at courage and waited for the challenge to be answered. Nothing. Like the Nothing of the Neverending Story. Just nothing.
Fear gripped me. Nothing is more frightful than the unknown. Better the devil you know, they say. But to walk up to, no, to jump into an unknowable trench to face an unknowable enemy with an unknowable outcome. Pass. It occurred to me far later, much longer than it probably took you to sort out, that it is the Unknown itself that I must slay. But, what kind of weaponry does one bring to a battle with the unknown. How, for instance, does one approach the question, will this pregnancy survive? Why do I get this sinking feeling when i think of my mother telling me she was not feeling well?
If I bring power, I end up yearning for control only to be dismayed. The earth need simply shudder beneath my feet to dismantle that illusion. If I bring cunning, it will take but a moment to find I'm outwitted and bitterly humbled. To prepare for the unknown is to howl at the moon. It occurs to me, I cannot fight this dragon. So, how do I accomplish its death? This meditation returned nightly and grows in meaning even today.
I gather hints here and there. This weekend, in fact, a wise young man simply said to me: Accept. I keep hearing words like that. Surrender. Release. Breathe. These words are my mantra now, though they sit heavy and dry on my tongue like a bad case of cottonmouth. I keep licking my lips and sloshing my tongue about to shake it off. But, perhaps this dragon will lie down to a my new song of concession. Then, if I'm lucky, I'll arise a child again.
I want to be a child when I have a child, I told Mom. Maybe then I won't have to worry about relying so heavily on the lioness at the expense of those closest to me. She always understand my crazy way of saying things. You will be, she told me.
Then she asked me what I was making for dinner. I can't remember now. She always asked that though. I almost don't know how to make dinner anymore, without her asking. What should I serve with the pork loin, I'd ask. Ooh, I just got this great recipe for a Warm Apricot Spinach Salad with Prosciutto and Goat Cheese, she'd say.
I was just remembering the conversation mom and had one day after work in early December. I sat in the church parking lot behind our little house in Greenlake just north of Seattle and we talked. I told her that everything I know about the mother I want to be is in my memory of her. That means giving unconditional love selflessly, passionately and often to my children. It means giving them a home to be proud of, filled with laughter and an inexplicable warmth.
The kind of place that feels instantly like home, smells like home. Before you know it, your feet are up a drink is in your hand and your laughing louder than you have all day. It's a place where time stops, well, as long as we can manage it. In my mothers house, people catch themselves sighing. Breathing deeply. Wanting more. Wanting to stay and stay. People forget whatever else they had planned and simply linger. They forget what always seems to plague them. The remember who they are though. That's what light does. She is light.
You were a lioness, I exclaimed. Am I not that as well? You guarded us. You huddled us into your bosom and reared us alone for many years. How will I know how to share the task of parenting? What will keep me from guarding my children as you did?
I didn't want to be a lioness, she said. I had to be. You work in a flower shop. I could hear her smile: You have a beautiful husband who will be a wonderful father. You have a powerful community around you. You won't need to be the lion. And if you do, you'll know. Just trust yourself. You'll be magnificent. You'll be the flower child I didn't get to be.
It brought to mind this fable told to me by a dear friend, Katie who lost her mother from Pancreatic Cancer a couple of years ago. A fable she heard through a shaman in Seattle whom, I imagine, heard it from Nietzsche:
When we are born, we are camels. We drink and we drink. We drink in all that we can and store it. It is important that we drink in much, so that we may be large camels.
And, it is important to be a large camel, because when we reach the desert, as great a camel as we were, so we are great as a lion.
It is important to be a great lion, because we must cross the desert. And, when we reach the edge of the desert we must slay our dragon. The dragon is: Thou Shalt.
Once we slay our dragon, we become a child.
I've thought long about this story. I love old stories. I think I was born a lion. A desert child. And the desert was my home. The only home I knew or wanted or knew to want. I didn't know to hope for more. I became quizzically adept at guiding new born lions from one end of the desert to the next, offering pointers on how to locate, name and ultimately defeat their dragons whilst mine thrived from neglect. I remained paralyzed from a fear of my dragon. Little wisdom I have shared, have I consumed.
As I sat again on our porch, staring into the lake, I saw the evening light dance on the water. Street lights spraying pink, yellow and green lights in ticklish streaks down the black quivering surface. I followed the light, crisp and electric into the foggy blur of cloud cover reflecting hazy on the water. In that moment, the scene changed. The axis of the planet changed. The bright lines were not tracing the waters face, but pouring down an abysmal cliff face. The fog wasn't a gray mirror, but a billowing fog nestled in the basin of an interminable canyon. Perhaps it was the smoky breath of a dragon hidden beneath.
I felt dizzy. Turned my head. Restored my field of vision. But, then I couldn't help myself. I peered again into the pitfall and drenched in its possibility. A lair. Where my dragon hides. I want to see his face. I want to slay him. Let him surface, I called to the cavern. I summoned some haughty attempt at courage and waited for the challenge to be answered. Nothing. Like the Nothing of the Neverending Story. Just nothing.
Fear gripped me. Nothing is more frightful than the unknown. Better the devil you know, they say. But to walk up to, no, to jump into an unknowable trench to face an unknowable enemy with an unknowable outcome. Pass. It occurred to me far later, much longer than it probably took you to sort out, that it is the Unknown itself that I must slay. But, what kind of weaponry does one bring to a battle with the unknown. How, for instance, does one approach the question, will this pregnancy survive? Why do I get this sinking feeling when i think of my mother telling me she was not feeling well?
If I bring power, I end up yearning for control only to be dismayed. The earth need simply shudder beneath my feet to dismantle that illusion. If I bring cunning, it will take but a moment to find I'm outwitted and bitterly humbled. To prepare for the unknown is to howl at the moon. It occurs to me, I cannot fight this dragon. So, how do I accomplish its death? This meditation returned nightly and grows in meaning even today.
I gather hints here and there. This weekend, in fact, a wise young man simply said to me: Accept. I keep hearing words like that. Surrender. Release. Breathe. These words are my mantra now, though they sit heavy and dry on my tongue like a bad case of cottonmouth. I keep licking my lips and sloshing my tongue about to shake it off. But, perhaps this dragon will lie down to a my new song of concession. Then, if I'm lucky, I'll arise a child again.
I want to be a child when I have a child, I told Mom. Maybe then I won't have to worry about relying so heavily on the lioness at the expense of those closest to me. She always understand my crazy way of saying things. You will be, she told me.
Then she asked me what I was making for dinner. I can't remember now. She always asked that though. I almost don't know how to make dinner anymore, without her asking. What should I serve with the pork loin, I'd ask. Ooh, I just got this great recipe for a Warm Apricot Spinach Salad with Prosciutto and Goat Cheese, she'd say.
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