The diagnosis, when it finally came, was shattering. H had inoperable lung cancer, and the prognosis was six months, maybe twelve. There followed the usual fruitless round of oncologists, radiation experts, chemo experts, etc. The advice was that direct radiation of the tumour, whose location smack dab between both lungs rendered it inoperable, would shrink it and give H some extra lung capacity. But it was small comfort, since her lung capacity, by this point, was pretty damn’ low. There was also a push for her to undergo chemo, but with no guarantee that it would achieve anything. After a few radiation sessions left H with agonizing internal burns, she nixed the idea of chemo on the entirely reasonable grounds that, while it might give her an extra three months or so, she would have to go through an equal number of months of hell to achieve it.
For me, the most shocking part of the next few months was how quickly H succumbed to the disease. There was no grace period at all, no time to make a farewell trip to England as she hoped, or to spend a last, carefree holiday with D before embarking on her final journey. Within days of her diagnosis, the cancer was spreading to her bones and H was in terrible pain, for which she was given Oxycodone, aka Hillbilly Heroin. The oxy, of course, carried with it all kinds of side effects, for which she was given more drugs that had their own reactions for which she needed other drugs, and so it went, round and round. The radiation therapy completely incapacitated her, and she began spending her days lying on a sofa, trying to keep in touch with her far-flung step-family by Skype and email. Despite years of working in administration, H was a hopeless Luddite around computers, as was D, and I spent hours trying to simplify the new laptop D bought her to replace the steam-driven 2 meg computer they’d been using to this point. Since there was damn’ all else I could do to feel more useful than a one-legged man at an arse-kicking party, computer geekery and ironing became my contributions to the household. H was the only other person in the whole of Canada, we reckoned, who was as daft as I am about ironing.
And, because I have never hesitated to call a spade a fucken shovel and was not at all shy about discussing the less savoury aspects of her situation, we talked. God, how we talked. We walked through likely scenarios, and how she wanted her obituary to read; we discussed hospice and whether it was a good idea or not. We laughed a lot, surprisingly. And sometimes we wept bitter tears. Although, the only times H really wept inconsolably were when she worried about how D would cope after she was gone. She also worried about how hard the end might be. If possible, she wanted to die at home. I promised her that TFH and I would be D’s friends, and that I would do everything I could to look after him for her. Which inevitably led to jokes about the kind of woman we would find for him, and how any candidate would have to pass muster with me and her other close girlfriends. And I promised her that I would be with her at the very end, even if I had to move into her basement for a few weeks.
I was not H’s only friend during this time. She had one of the largest and most diverse bunch of friends I have ever known one person to have. Most of them rallied round, called and send flowers, came by with casseroles and cookies, and brought her books, oh so many books. A few dropped off the radar, unable to handle her disease. And she also dumped a surprising number, for the oddest of reasons. One friend, who went back many years and had been very close to H, was declared persona non grata after she asked H if she had talked to “her minister.” Because D was a Christian and went to church, H had always gone along with him. They were married in his church, and her mother’s funeral had been conducted by his minister, so it was a logical assumption on the friend’s part. But H was furious. “How can she know so little about me, after all these years, to think I would get religion, just because I’m dying,” she stormed. When I mumbled something about there being no atheists in a foxhole, she rounded on me too, but then decided I was joking and let it pass. She had decreed that there was to be no negativity in what was left of her life, and some friends did not fit that criterion, so they were given the old heave-ho, much to their surprise and distress.
One old friend, B, came from BC to stay with her for several weeks, and they had a grand old time, re-living the days when they were room-mates. I think D felt pushed aside, partly because H & B went back a long way before he came on the scene, and partly because B took over much of the intimate side of nursing H and monitoring her increasingly complex regimen of meds. I stepped back a little, too, to give them time together, but I stayed in touch with B by telephone and spent at least one evening a week with H.
I was surprised and relieved, when H suddenly told me she intended moving into a hospice before the end. Although it was charming, D&H’s house had a little too much character for an invalid at death’s door, with pokey, steep stairs, and dark, rather gloomy rooms. On December 12th, a week before B was scheduled to return to Vancouver, H decided it was time to make that move, the doctor concurred, and a place for her was found in a small, informal nursing home close to her house.
Which is where this saga began, with me trekking down the QEW Highway every day to sit with H. And it brings me to the bitter memories that title these posts. I have nothing but wonderful, warm and funny, shake-my-head memories of H. Not a single day goes by that I do not think of her, prompted by something as simple as coring a tomato the way she showed me, or fluffing up the little cat pillow she gave me as a birthday gift one year. I dream about her quite often, and none of these memories or dreams are distressing to me, because they make me feel she is still a part of my life and always will be.
I’m bitter because I was unable to keep the two promises that I made H. On the last day of her life, D had a meltdown, and threw me, H’s stepmother #3, and the step-brother she adored, who had travelled from Denmark to be with her, out of the hospice. He and his sister, whom H loathed, were with her at the end.
A month and a half after H died, D had a girlfriend, some 15 years younger than him, and she is now living in H’s house. The house is being renovated, to prepare it for sale, and a move to a new house, closer to the girlfriend’s hometown. The boat has been sold and a bigger boat bought, so that they might do some major cruising, including a plan to sail along the East Coast to Halifax, although D gets seasick on Lake Ontario. Plane tickets have been booked for a trip in January, to London and to Dubai — both trips H really wanted to make, but D refused to go with her. And, after being introduced to the girlfriend, when they sailed into our club for the Canada Day fireworks (ouch!) last July, I have been jettisoned. D talks about me a lot to mutual friends, banging on about how wonderful I was to H and how much it meant to him that I accepted him moving on, yadda yadda. And he’s right, I did accept it — when he finally told me about the girlfriend, I told him life is for the living. Some of our mutual friends believe D is avoiding me because I remind him of H. Others believe he is avoiding me because I remind his girlfriend of H. Either way, I’ve lost another friend, and I broke my second promise to H.
That’s why I am bitter.
In spite of the bitterness you feel, your writing is so compelling…I was sorry when your narration had ended…It is so full of love, tenderness, and wit. In spite of the loss of D., you make clear how omnipresent H.’s spirit is in both your waking and dreaming life…And promises aside…you kept all the ones within your power to control…I suspect, under the circumstances, H. would have given them both “the old heave hoe” herself.
Writing these posts have helped to lance the bitterness. And the comments I’ve received as the story unfolded have been amazing.
So much of this story is exactly like the one I lived. My friends husband was whining to me just before she died, that he was afraid no one would come around after Loyce died. I assured him we would, but she died that day and three days later he was talking about who was available to date. I couldn’t go around him after that because it was always about him, and never about her…..even when she was alive. I’m bitter….and I miss the hell out of her. I feel your pain.
You have put your finger on it, MLS. It was all about D, and his pain, and how he couldn’t possible live alone, after H was gone. And I didn’t blame him for that. But H lifted him out of his comfort zone and now he has retreated to it with the new girlfriend. She seems nice, but he’s a different man with her, and she will never challenge him the way H did. Maybe that’s how he wants it, but now I know how the baby must have felt, flying through the air surrounded by bath water.
I’ve been waiting for you to finish this before I commented, and now I’m not sure what to say.
Except that if I were to become terminally ill, I hope there is someone there for me like you were for H. You have no idea how your story has moved me, and that is very hard to do. You must be a remarkable woman.
Don’t feel bad for the promises you couldn’t keep, for your inability to do so surely wasn’t for lack of trying. The important thing was that you were there for your friend and you were able to make those promises that gave her so much comfort. You were there for her when she needed you and that’s what counts.
Thank you, Jan. The old friend, B, that I mentioned in the last post, called me from Vancouver last weekend. She’d been thinking about H and, because she has never heard anything from D since she died, decided to call me. The woman left her home and family and flew across the country to spend those weeks with H, but D has wiped her from his memory banks. Her call woke some demons, and prompted me to write the story.
Beautifully told, Tessa. D didn’t take a breath did he, but he has moved on and my sense is that in avoiding you he doesn’t want to come smack dab up against his own guilt.
You honoured your friend and do so daily.
XO
WWW
When D and the new squeeze sailed over here on Canada Day, he was a bit down in the mouth at one point, which she put down to him selling the boat. But, when she was out of earshot, he confessed to me that he was remembering the circumstances of his and H’s visit the year before. And there I was, like a mug, comforting him. Never occurred to him, of course, how I had felt watching his boat come into dock, with his new lady sitting on the rail, just as H used to do.
Life is for the living, but crying is a part of life. The dead have left their troubles here.
You’ve made my heart feel heavy all of a sudden and put me in mind of a song you more than likely already know;
http://www.deezer.com/track/517436
My apologies, the ABOVE LINK WAS INCORRECT !
Here’s the correct one
http://www.deezer.com/track/949063
sorry about that. It’s a beautiful sad song for a beautiful sad post
Thank you, Craic. It is indeed a beautiful song … And thank you for introducing me to Deezer. Where’s it been all my life? (Please don’t answer that.)
But you didn’t break your promise – you *were* prepared to be D’s friend. It is *he* who has chosen to jettison you and try and forget his old life so quickly, except what it suits him to remember.
How hypocritical about the trips and the boat though.
But distressing though this situation must be for you, i see nothing for you to beat yourself up over – like you say he had some sort of meltdown, and is now deluding himself that he can start again so quickly and keep someone so much younger interested. He may be incredibly shallow, he may be in complete denial about his true grief and trying to get a new life ASAP in the hope of avoiding grief. Again, it will all catch up with them in the end. You tried to honour your friend’s wishes and it is not your fault that has been denied to you – perhaps you can honour her in another way – plant trees, set up a charity or something else close to her heart.
I think part of my anger is because I believe D is moving too far, too fast. I know he needs to have someone around, that he can’t be on his own, but I also don’t think he should be throwing his old life in the crapper so quickly. And I miss him, just as I miss H.
I really like your idea about trees … H planted a tree just above the harbour here for her father, and it would be perfect to have an H tree there, too. Thank you for that!
Tessa — What a wonderful, moving story you’ve told here. My condolences to you on your loss — but I do have some kind of vague belief that those we’re this close to linger with us forever. — Ruth
I think you’re right, Ruth. I remember a post you wrote about that, back in October, that reminded me of the way H is still with me. Thank you.
I’ve avoided posting on this here weblog, but have been reading along from the start.
All of this — every word — is a testament to the person H was, and the impact she had on your life. And mine.
There’s a piece of writing we both know, in which hulls, booms and dry docks are likened to icebergs, a jungle, and other, similarly overwrought metaphors. All images filed and catalogued in the memories of a too-tired child on a too-early morning, in a too-foreign land.
In that same place where half asleep children store half asleep memories, next to the plans for world domination, gestating freudian complexes, and as-yet undiscovered cravings for ‘acquired tastes’ such as coffee, goat cheese, and parsnips, lives a patchy swath of sleep-tinged images, which together form a clearer memory of H than any time spent in a hospice by the side of the QEW ever will.
It’s the tiny little tv on the top floor of a character-laden house with — shock, horror — networks on different channels; the strange resemblance D had to a fluffy white polar bear in both appearance and timbre; that tiny fleck of crimson lipstick that always found it’s way onto H’s left front tooth; and H’s meals — rich, delicious, and far too distracting from the above-mentioned cable to keep any willful child in his seat.
But most of all it’s the knock-down-drag-out matches, neutered by the floorboards through which they drifted into the tiny little room, with the tiny little tv, on the top floor of a character-laden house.
The knock-down-drag-out matches which, in a sleepy child of 7 or 8, inspired a violent pressing of the Vol + button and a groan worthy of a much larger man bearing a much larger cross.
I had a feeling you were lurking. Glad you finally broke cover … and I remember that piece of writing …
I know that H – and her polar-bear husband – affected your life, too. But I hope you always knew that the knock-down-drag-out matches were fun for us. You increased the volume because we were interfering with your tv viewing, right? Aw, you’re not trying to guilt me, are you? You know you can’t kid a kidder, right?
The day you acquire a taste for goat’s cheese will be my cue to say nunc dimittis
You, lady, are one hell of a friend. If, when I go, I have a friend anything like you within a mile or two, seen or unseen, I will count myself blessed. And despite D’s weird floundering now (that’s what he’s doing, you know), it wouldn’t surprise me if H felt similarly blessed.
Thanks, John. Floundering … I believe you’re right. He is so lost without H, and consumed with the idea of filling the gap she has left, without taking the time to come to terms with his loss.
I’ve watched a friend die from lung cancer. From an annoying and persistent cough ameliorated by sherry to emaciated wizened skeleton sucking oxygen from a tube in the space of 6 months.
I smoke, and I wish I didn’t.
I wish you didn’t, too. But if I could do it – cold turkey, from 40 fags a day, with none of those sissy filters – you can do it. Sounds like a good New Year’s resolution coming up … for me to stop lecturing people on their smoking habits.
What a powerful story and a compelling voice. I’m a bit glad I came in once it was all up and could read it straight through.
H was so fortunate to have you for a friend. I’m sorry that the turn of events with her widow have you feeling bitter.
Thanks, Pseudonymous. Believe me, the benefits of friendship with H were all mine. She was a remarkable woman, who did so much to help me and #1 Son settle in Canada.