Open Writing

Watching my son sink deeper and deeper into misery drags time to a virtual stop. I sizzle inside, desperate to do something. James alternately pleads with me to help him or spits blame.

‘I don't know what else to try, Sweetheart.' I feel utterly helpless.

James looks into my face and I see my failure in his eyes. We have betrayed his trust, parents are supposed to protect their children. He walks into his room and shuts the door.

My heart is screaming. I escape to my room, throw myself on the bed and cry out in prayer. 'You promised, Lord, you would never give us burdens too great to carry. I can't bear to see him this way.'

Almost instantly, the phone rings. It's my friend, Pat, asking if I fancy a walk with her. As we walk, I pour out my anguish and she listens. She might not believe it but she's the answer to my prayer, the Spirit is working through her. When I get back, feeling stronger, James also seems to have improved slightly.

He decides he's well enough to go back to school. I can hardly breathe, as I drop him off for his first day with one leg and watch him make his way inside, thin, bald and alone (he insisted on that). The school is very poorly designed for the handicapped. He will have to go up and down several flights of stairs between each class and 'walk' miles of corridors, on crutches, weak from his treatments and major surgery. However, as soon as he faces this challenge, almost imperceptibly, the pains begin to subside. Whether it's the removal of that particular fear from the tempest in his mind or the distraction of lessons and friends, I don't know. Perhaps the drugs have finally kicked in.

Through all of this David is incredible. He quietly copes with his needs taking second place and tries to keep normality for James. He teases his brother brutally, when he senses James becoming morbid or self-pitying, until he gets a laugh or a smile. At school, David has taken on the job of editor of the school paper, helps set up a film club and plays keyboard and saxophone in the orchestra and Big Band. He also has a paper round and is still active in scouts.

Howard is trying to cope with working for the new company. He has to fight his corner and wins a bigger budget for his department and more realistic targets. He earns some long overdue recognition and praise for his hard work and is promised a fairer wage structure and more support. But he's also being asked to work longer and longer hours and be away from home more frequently than ever.

The wonderful surgeon from Birmingham phones me at home, a few weeks after the operation. He tells me that the preliminary pathology reports show 60 to 65% necrosis (dead cancer cells), which means that the chemotherapy was having some effect. The cells had changed since the biopsy in July. The cancer had invaded the small blood vessels and the lymph tissue so there would have been absolutely no way to save the leg. The margins were clear so, hopefully, there would be no more cancer in his body.

*

The power of emotion on physical health wasn't new to me. I was seventeen in the autumn that we loaded up my dad's car to take me the 250 miles to a university on the other side of the state, the one my parents had gone to. There was only one other person I knew from my school who was going to the same university.

I had barely slept, wondering what my new life would be like and, more important, my new roommate. I didn't even know her name. Would I be able to find my way around the campus of a university that had 25,000 students? What would the classes and teachers be like? Would I be able to do the work and find a part time job? As well as the fears, there was the carbonated feeling of excitement; I was getting away, trying new things, beginning to make my own way in the world.

Driving along in the late summer heat, my stomach alternately rolled and clenched. I couldn't seem to deepen my breathing or slow my heart rate.

Into the silence, Nicki casually announced, 'Oh by the way, May will be having your bedroom.'

The image of my ten-year-old stepsister scattering her things carelessly about in my private space, splashed orange and black across my mind. Apart from the fact that, had I known, I could have removed my treasured possessions. I felt like a tiny dinghy cut loose from its moorings at the height of a storm.

'What about when I come home?' I managed to squeeze out of my constricted throat.

'Oh, you won't be coming home,' was the happy reply.

When I recovered the ability to speak, gasping to the surface of my own private tempest, I asked, 'But what about Christmas and Thanksgiving?'

'I guess you could sleep on the couch,' she answered, obviously surprised by the very idea.

My dad made no comment during this 'discussion'. He had perfected the art of 'tuning out' and probably hadn't heard what had been said.

The dorm room was just large enough for its two occupants and we shared a bathroom with the two girls in the next room. I cried most of the first week and can't imagine what my new roommates thought. Managing to beg a lift home the first weekend, my dad opened the door, as I arrived and greeted me with, literally, open arms. That huge hug from my usually undemonstrative father was all that I needed. I didn't shed another tear or return home, except for holidays, until the summer.

I was paying my own way through university, which meant that I had to work part time during the term and full time during the four-month summer break. My Dad and Nicki had sold their house and were living in a small rented place whilst they were having a new home built. Staying with them meant that I could save every penny I earned as a waitress, for the coming year. However, the tension in the house, which I assumed was caused by my presence, and the sarcastic, outwardly inoffensive but hurtful remarks made by Nicki, quickly convinced me that I could never go home again for more than the briefest of visits.

***