Chapter 2: Sink or Swim

Mom's chapter 2 is similar to Loie's chapter in section one.  It is long and has several themes critical to the rest of her book.  I'd like to break her "Childhood and Adolescence: Not for Sissies" chapter into a few entries, then post an unabridged version later this week (okay, by Christmas for sure).

Strawberry Story: Standing in a Strawberry Patch

Standing in a Strawberry Patch

    by William Killian

We grew strawberries at home
and then I worked on a strawberry farm when I was an early teen.
At the end of a long day, Bob, the owner, called me in
it was a small town, everybody knew everybody
and he said, "Billy, we won't need you anymore." 
I had only picked a few quarts all day,
ate the rest and threw them at the other pickers. 
I was hurt and sad. 

The next morning, Bob showed up at my door on his tractor,
"Come on, Billy, I need you today.  Let's go to work." 
A moment I shall never forget. 
I picked more that day, ate less and threw none. 

I often think, Billy, who needs you today
If you're standing in a strawberry patch
Are you willing to pick strawberries and fill those beautiful boxes, those crates,
and work there with your friends and fill that entire wagon to be carried off to market?

What a sweet thrill, what a sweet memory, re-ripe with life, with youth, and opportunity.

Strawberry Story: Und doch...And yet...

And Yet...

                          by Dr. Ronald Miller of Common Ground

Und doch...

Ich weiss von dem Fluss des Heraklit
den man nie zweimal berschreiten kann.
Ich weiss von den Tr%onen alle Dingen
von denen Virgilius so traurig sprach.
Ich weiss vom gebrochenen Brot und
augegossenen Wein des letztes Abendmahls
des Herrn mit seinen angstovollen J,ngern.
Ich weiss von der Zerbrechlichkeit des Daseins
besonders des Herzens das so verwundbar schl%ogt.
Und doch kann das Leben so sch'n sein;
und trotzdem schmecken die wilde Erdbeeren
manchmal so s,ss.


And yet...

I know about Heraclitus' river
that no one can cross over twice.
I know about the tears of all things
about which Virgil spoke so sadly.
I know about the broken bread and the poured out wine of the Last Supper
of the Lord with his fearful disciples.
I know about the fragility of existence,
especially the heart that beats so vulnerable.
And yet life can still be so beautiful
and the wild strawberries taste nonetheless
sometimes so sweet.

Pardon the Interuption

What happened to me?  Am I not a good daughter?  Why on Earth would a memorial blogger, paying homage to a woman who survived cancer for 50 years, decide to take a break during cancer season?  I mean, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Don't I want women to be aware?  And now November--did you even know it's Prostate, and Pancreatic, and Lung cancer awareness month? 

I actually thought it was oral, head, and neck cancer awareness month (turns out that only gets a week in May can goes by the acronym OHANCAW).

The point is, somewhere along the way in October I got in a funk.  I dug my heels in, no matter the commemorations going on around me, and didn't want to go any further.  Of course I love my mother, of course I want to honor her.  But to be honest, I have a strange relationship with cancer.  Shouldn't we all?

I remember mom never really being in the clear.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 6, and by then she was already a 30 year survivor of the neuroblastoma bout.  While I was in high school she had a large tumor identified in her neck that was found to be benign.  Research at the time showed that these benign tumors could turn malignant overnight, but she was not advised by her doctor to remove the tumor then that would later kill her (yes, she did file a malpractice suit and won). 

For over ten years we waited for the other shoe to drop.  It was a maddening cycle of health, calm, fear, confirmed dread, and repeat.  Things taken out, things put back in...all for momentary repreives.  It got to a point I felt more stable when the cancer was back--at least then we knew what we were dealing with!  The cycle of coping would start back up again and we knew how to handle ourselves.  When she was in the "clear," well, we knew it would only be short lived.

I've spent a lot of time over my break thinking about the blog and the directions I want it to go.  I want to finish posting her book, the poetry of friends, and filling it with the content essence of mom.  But sometimes it gets a little too hard.  Sometimes the calendar and I need to fight it out.  Breast Cancer Awareness Month...it's a lot of pressure to keep it together when the whole world is coping, surviving, pulling together to conquer this common obstacle.

Think that's weird?  During the darkest days of denial last month I woke up to find hundreds of runners going past my door.  They were all a part of a breast cancer awareness month 5K run.  What did I do?  I got on my shoes and ran the other way.  I literally ran against the grain, against the rush of all those wonderful people pulling together to do what they could to support their friends, family, or maybe even themselves.

Why would I do that?  Wouldn't I want self identify myself among them?  Aren't they my people?  I felt lost.  And as if that wasn't enough, after the fun run they...[sound of a booming voice] RELEASED THE SPRINTERS.  The most fit and healthy of the runners zoomed past me as I tried to get to the front of the line, working still in the oposite direction.

November is half over, then its on to Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  The first two are probably obvious as to why I'd be thinking of Mom, standard holidays fun running past me.  As to the last, she died on January 15, 1999, MLK's birthday.  After New Years, it's sprinting right at me. 

It just never ends.

So I'm applying some simple sports medicine to make it through.  Icing and heating, self-medicating, and positive visualisation.  I WILL make it to the finish line.  Hope to see you there.