Life (and Death) is What Happens While We are Making Other Plans

“You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”  ~ C.S. Lewis

    My mother always said bad things come in threes. Some can rationalize this as superstition, nevertheless it has been a tremendously difficult week aboard the NB Valerie and three was the operative number. Late last Saturday a call from the States informed me that my brother-in-law was dying of liver cancer brought about from overexposure to de-icing fluid when he worked at Anchorage International Airport. Another call early Monday morning informed me he was gone.
   I've known my cousin Nick since I was four years old when I met him on the stairs of his mother's house in St. Paul. We, his blond Northern cousins, were in town for a visit. Our mother Florence and his mother Sally were sisters. My sister Susan was fourteen at the time and, as Nick and I sat watching on the stairs, Susan was modeling the new clothes bought for her earlier in the day. I truly do think it was at that very moment Nick fell in love with Susan. He was clearly mesmerized by her beauty as anyone who has known her over the years can relate. Even still at Sixty-something, the beauty of Susan's 1000 watt smile is still evident.
   Nick's best quality to me was his sense of humor. I've seldom known anyone who loved to laugh as much as Nicky. Laughter is one of the survival techniques that comes with being part of a larger multi-generational family with a dark thread of dysfunction and depression traveling through its core. True laughter is such a gift and Nick gave me plenty of really great funny memories. I can honestly say I've never laughed so hard or so deeply with anyone else I have with Nick and Susan.

Two memories stand out against all the rest...

   I flew back home in 1994 when my mom died. I stayed with Susan and Nick while I was here. I am generally known as the great cook in our family, and Susan and Nick generously turned their kitchen over to me while I was staying with them. While Susan is known for many things, gourmet cooking is not one of them. She hails from the Norwegian farm style of cooking taught to us by our mom, who learned to cook from her mother-in-law as a young girl of eighteen, in which salt and pepper are the only true spices ever relevant and white sauce goes with anything.
   I enjoy cooking and feeding those I love. Cooking for Susan and Nick was a joy that salved my aching heart over the loss of our mother. One morning after I had fixed a particularity spectacular, spicy Chinese dinner for all of us, I woke about five a.m. and could not get back to sleep. I quietly wandered up the stairs to the smell of coffee brewing. I found Nick sitting at the breakfast bar in the early morning dark, hunched over with his head in his hands. As I approached, Nick lifted his head, his brown eyes bleary with lack of sleep.

   "Are you all right?" I asked
   "Oh Jaq I had THE worst nightmare--it was truly awful,"Nick replied.
   "Well tell me about it while I pour us some coffee."
I sat down next to Nick and as we sat sipping our hot Java Nick continued:
   "It started out as a really great dream. I dreamt you were in the kitchen cooking Barbecue Ribs. Oh Jaq it was so real! I could smell those ribs--I got a spoon out of the drawer and tasted the sauce. It was incredible--spicy just the way I like it and just really good. You said the ribs needed to cook all night and we all went to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up and realized Susan was not in bed with me. I put on my robe and dashed upstairs. I was too late to stop her. Susan poured white sauce all over those ribs!!" In true Nick fashion he looked at me, I looked back at him and we started laughing hysterically, waking up the whole house.
   Later in the week after Mom's body had been cremated we asked for her ashes to be split three ways between us three daughters--Susan, me, and our sister Sharon. We priced the cost of urns and realized we could not afford one let alone three. As Susan, Nick and I sat puzzling over this situation Nick got that look of sudden inspiration mixed with a bit of mischief and said, "Leave it with me. I know what to do. I'll be back in a bit." Off he went down the stairs, intent on his mission, his head bobbing from side to side under his thick, dark, curly hair as he went out the door. 
   Nick came back several hours later with a large cardboard box in his arms. He set it on the breakfast bar and said, 
   "When Aunt Florence came back home to Alaska she was too ill with cancer to do much. She was feeling housebound one day so I suggested she come sit in a chair in the garage and watch while I sorted through all our junk and cleaned out some of those boxes. (Nick had inherited the Pack Rat gene which also runs through our family). I got Aunt Florence into a chair in the sunshine and covered her with a blanket, and we talked while I worked. I came across a box full of empty tins--Nabisco cracker tins, Oreo cookie tins and the like. I started to throw them away and Aunt Florence said, 'Nicky boy don't throw those out--they may still come in handy. Those are good tins.'"
   With a flourish Nick opened the cardboard box and pulled out three tins of similar size: Ritz crackers, Saltine crackers and Oreo cookies, and that is how I came to carry my mother's ashes home on the plane in a bright red Ritz cracker tin! We all burst into crazy laughter, and Nick said he could feel that our mom's spirit was laughing with us.
   When Nick laughed it didn't just come from his mouth. His laughter actually started in his big brown eyes which would crinkle up in the corners. It would spread to the rest of his face and pour from his chest and belly. Nick's body would literally heave with laughter and the joy that comes with it. The sound of his laughter was infectious and no one who heard him could fail to join in. This is how I choose to remember Nicky. I know that those who are remembered, live and Nick will live on in all the precious, funny memories I have of him.

   I spent last Monday morning quietly grieving, experiencing that strange sense of discontinuity resulting from the knowledge that someone we know and love is gone--forever--we will never again know them in this life; yet the sky is still blue, birds still sing, I am still alive, and life goes on.
   Later Monday morning we decided to find a lovely bit of countryside, so we cruised from Fenny Stratford to just above Stoke Hammond lock and set our pins on a lovely quiet bit of canal in the late afternoon sunshine. The hedge was bursting with blackberries, Les was happy, chilled out and feeling great. He went shirtless and sock-less in the heat of the day, sipping a cold lager. I have seldom seen my Best Beloved so relaxed.
   Then the phone rang and it changed everything. 
   It was the MacMillan Cancer nurse who was charged with informing us that some abnormalities on Les' recent CT scan two weeks ago required Les to meet with Mr. H--the colorectal surgeon--on Wednesday. She wasn't giving out much more information than that and Les lost it with her. She finally coughed up the basic fact that due to the findings of Les' Ct Scan the stoma surgery might-or might not occur, and left us both to sit in agony for thirty some hours. Little sleep was had by either of us that night or the next as we imagined the worse case scenario of metastasized cancer spread throughout his bowels. 
   The meeting Wednesday went quite well and we were pleasantly surprised. The scan turned up two very small lesions on Les' liver. Mr. H. said "You aren't going to die in the next two or three years that's for sure. They are very small and perfectly operable."
   We asked if it could possible be cancer and he replied that at this point no one knew but they were quite well aware of how Les felt about chemotherapy. Mr. H. has sent Les' scan results to a liver specialist at the Royal Free Hospital in London for immediate action. The liver surgery must occur soon, so the stoma surgery has been postponed for now. 
   The good news is the liver regenerates itself and at this stage it is felt Les' liver will do so just fine. We are waiting for the letter to arrive telling us when we meet with the liver specialist in London, as we change our winter plans once more and begin sussing out the best place to moor the boat which will be reasonable for me to access water and services, safe, quiet, and still be close enough for me to travel to the hospital in London.
   On a treatment note, I want folks to understand that while we planned for Les to undergo Gerson therapy--which is a medical therapy researched and developed by a medical doctor--he had not been able to do so because of the tumor in his rectum and the stoma. Coffee enemas are a major part of this medical therapy which heals the immune system so it can attack disease. We were hoping to begin after his stoma was reversed but this sudden turn of events has played put to our plan for now...
   After a very frank discussion between us I've told Les I will support him in whatever therapy he chooses to have. He in turn has said he will not have chemotherapy or further radiation treatments. We will permanently change our diets to mostly vegetarian, remove as much sugar from our lives as possible,  and begin taking the host of supplements I had him on just prior to his initial surgery last October but which we discontinued when he came home. I will continue researching and we will make use of any other reasonable treatments that don't destroy what is left of his immune system or leave him with devastating permanent side effects. This is Les' choice and I support it.
   Finally, our daughter-in-law Joanne is having gall bladder surgery today. We will visit her this weekend to administer some loving care, fingers crossed that all goes well and the law of threes is now satisfied for the time being...