Another Visit

“Love is born with the pleasure of looking at each other, it is fed with the necessity of seeing each other, it is concluded with the impossibility of separation.” - Anon

Last Sunday I asked Jacob if he thought he could fit in lunch or a cup of coffee sometime during the week. I was prepared to change whatever plans I had to spend even an hour with him. He said he would look at his schedule and get back to me. When he hadn't gotten back by Wednesday, I decided to take charge. I called and asked him if he could make Friday work. He said that would be great. So yesterday I went to Guelph. I phoned Nan in the morning and asked her if she would like to join me. She was pleased at the prospect of a couple of hours with Jacob. I baked a batch of brownies and headed to the grocery store to pick up a few treats. Six bags of groceries later, I was ready.

Jacob was supposed to meet me at his house at two o'clock. When I called to tell him I was two minutes away, he advised he had sent a text message letting me know he couldn't get home for two o'clock. So we agreed instead to meet at Montana's. He was happy to see his Aunt Nan and allayed any concerns we might have about large portions at the restaurant by assuring us he would take home all our leftovers and enjoy them later in the day. When checking my blackberry in the restaurant I also saw that he had sent a note requesting that I bring his ugly sweater to him. Jacob was planning to attend an ugly sweater party on Friday evening and he wanted the very ugly sweater he bought for a party last year. Unfortunately, he sent that message after I was already on the road so I did not bring the sweater. No problem. I offered to take him to buy another ugly sweater and he happily accepted my offer so after lunch we were off to Value Village.

I had never been to a Value Village before. it is quite an interesting shopping experience. True there is some real junk but for a careful shopper, there are also some real treasures. Jacob was successful in finding a really hideous sweater. Nancy found a couple of orphan bone china saucers that will be great for her mosaics and I found a beautiful and unusual creamer and sugar set that I could not resist. Jacob also scored a Guinness beer glass to add to his beer glass collection.

After Value Village we made a quick stop at Fabricland where Nan found the fabric she has been unsuccessful in getting in Toronto. I took Jacob home, unloaded the groceries while he gave his Aunt Nan a tour of his house and it was time to go. I'm still not good at goodbye. But I felt considerably better after a couple of hours with him. I wonder if I'll ever get good at being apart from him.

Pricilla

Together we will go our way, together we will leave some day.

Together your hand in my hand, together we will make the plans.

Together we will fly so high, together tell our friends goodbye.

Together we will start life new, together this is what we'll do.

Go west, life is peaceful there.

Go west, lots of open air.

Go west to begin life new.

Go west, this is what we'll do.

Go west, sun in winter time.

Go west, we will do just fine.

Go wes t where the skies are blue.

Go west, this and more we'll do.

Together we will love the beach, together we will learn and teach.

Together change our pace of life, together we will work and strive.

I love you, I know you love me; I want you happy and carefree.

So that's why I have no protest when you say you want to go west.

Go west, life is peaceful there.

Go west, lots of open air.

Go west to begin life new.

Go west, this is what we'll do.

Go west, sun in winter time.

Go west, we will do just fine.

Go west where the skies are blue.

Go west, this and more we'll do.

I know that there are many ways to live there in the sun or shade.

Together we will find a place to settle down and live with the space

without the busy pace back east, the hustling, rustling of the feet,

I know I'm ready to leave too, so this is what we're going to do,

Go west, life is peaceful there.

Go west, lots of open air.

Go west to begin life new.

Go west, this is what we'll do.

Go west, sun in winter time.

Go west, we will do just fine.

Go west where the skies are blue.

Go west, this and more we'll do.

- Village People - Go West 12 Mix lyrics

Pricilla Queen of the Desert is playing at the Princess of Wales and Merv and I attended on Friday night as part of our Mirvish subscription package. It is a laugh-out-loud, feel good production. Pure fun. I had heard that the audience for Pricilla was as crazy as the show with a spectacle of cross-dressing queens but I saw nothing but a lot of dull, mostly middle aged theatre goers on Friday night. Pricilla is on until November 28 and is worth the price of a ticket if you are just looking for some fun. Be forewarned, the show is for mature audiences.

It was a good way to inject some relaxation into an otherwise hectic week that included taking my mom for her quarterly gynecology appointment as well as working with Nan to get ready for and set up the Fall Fair at mom's nursing home. As usual it was chaos and I left at the end of the sale yesterday feeling exhausted.

Today I will make a short visit to my mom, who is suffering from a bad cold and has been confined to her room. Her unit is on lockdown following a respiratory outbreak. I will bring some melon and try to make some connection but I'm not hopeful that I will be able to engage her very much today. She didn't lift her head at all when I saw her yesterday and she was oblivious to my presence. When I finish at mom's I will head over to a friend's surprise 64th birthday party. His wife believes he hasn't got a clue and I hope she is right.

A Silver Elephant

“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” – Garrison Keillor

I’ve been thinking about this day for a long time. Five years in fact. Five years ago today, I had my first surgery for breast cancer. I was scared, as much for my family as myself. Jacob was just fourteen. He hadn’t taken my diagnosis well. Merv looked like a deer in the headlights. Cath and Nan were working hard to hide their devastation but had no success in fooling me.

I remember getting out of bed that morning, having hardly slept, filled with anxiety. I was required to be at the hospital early and the sun was just rising in the sky. While dressing I spoke quietly to my dad and asked him to watch over Jacob and my sisters. When I stepped into the foyer, I was startled to see that the stairs were covered with rainbows, an interaction between the rising sun and the crystal chandelier. My dad has sent me many rainbows over the years since he passed away. I was especially grateful for the rainbows that morning.

It was a long day at the hospital. But at the end of it I was optimistic. I came home, spent a couple of days reading and watching TV and went back to work. The surgeon was confident the cancer hadn’t spread to my nodes and a few rounds of radiation would be all that came next. Unfortunately, he was wrong. My pathology samples went missing after surgery and it was four weeks before I got the news. The cancer had reached my lymph nodes. I would require more surgery to be sure it hadn’t spread beyond the five nodes which had been taken and to assure clearance of the margins around the tumor. Surgery would be followed by four months of chemo and a month of daily radiation.

The day I received that news was followed by the longest, darkest night of my life. The biggest part of my angst was directed toward the impact of my illness on Jacob. If I didn’t make it, I figured, Merv would be single for about two weeks (and that was okay with me) but Jacob would be motherless all of his life and I could hardly bear to think of it. I also didn’t know how I was going to get through so much treatment. I didn’t want the pain. Didn’t want to feel sick. Didn’t want the fatigue. Didn’t want to be bald. I couldn’t sleep. Neither could Merv. Sometime in the night when we both thought the other was asleep, we figured out that we were in fact both awake. I told Merv how scared I was. He held me tight and let me cry.

Eventually the sun rose and so did I. Life went on. There was still work to be done. My company was in the middle of a union organizing campaign. Jacob still needed to be taken to school. Dinner still had to find its way to the table that night. I thought a lot about how I would find the resources to get through the next months. It all seemed like so much. So, I told myself that getting through cancer treatment is like eating an elephant. It is possible to eat an elephant. You just have to eat it one bite at a time. With my limited artistic skills, I drew an elephant in pencil on a sheet of paper and put it on my desk. In the months that followed, I erased a little bit of that elephant after every treatment. On July 21, 2006 it had vanished. I had eaten the elephant.

My second surgery in January 2006, showed no more evidence of cancer. So November 9, 2005, the day of my first surgery, had indeed been the day I became cancer free. The five year mark in cancer speak has some significance. I don’t know the reason why but when survival statistics are quoted, they are usually for the five year survival rate. I remember something else about that November morning. I promised myself that if I made it, I would honour my victory with a celebration on November 9, 2010.

Tonight Merv and I will share dinner with our family. Unfortunately Jacob won’t be able to join us but we will dine with Cath and Stan, Nan, Marg and Bob and Geraldine and Brian. Gail is away at school and Frank teaches on Tuesday nights so they too will be missing from the dinner table. We’re going to Cath’s. I will bring the champagne I’ve been saving. It will be a quiet evening spent just the way I wanted – with the people I love.

I did decide to mark this milestone for myself with a little gift. I bought a silver Pandora bracelet. Hanging from its center is a shiny silver elephant.

Wonderfully Wicked

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye
I am defying gravity
And you wont bring me down!

- Lyrics of Defying Gravity from Wicked

Amazing. Enthralling. Engaging. Uplifting. I loved Wicked. For our anniversary in August, Merv gave me a pair of tickets for last night's performance of Wicked at the Canon Theatre. The three hour performance went by in a flash. It is by far the best musical I've seen in a decade.

Wicked is the story of what happened before Dorothy went to Oz and what happened in Oz when she left. It was funny and heartwarming. The music is sensational. The performers were first-rate. We had seats in the front row of the balcony which is the most perfect vantage point from which to see all the action that's continually happening on stage. The scenery was amazing and the staging was complex. The actor who played the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, Elpheba, was the understudy but I can't imagine anyone could have performed it better.

The Toronto tour ends on November 28. This is one show not to miss.