A Life Less Lost: Chapter 31
...We're on another ward in a different building in the hospital grounds for this surgery. The anaesthetist asks James what he's going to dream about during the operation.
'Beautiful women,' he replies with a grin...
Kimm Walker continues her profoundly moving account of the heartache and courage involved in her teenage son's battle to overcome cancer.
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And do visit Kimm's Web site http://kbwalker-lifelesslost.blogspot.com/
I go back onto long-term sick leave from work and slowly, slowly find my way back to life. James, as usual, leads the way with his calm certainty that the cancer will be out of his body after this next surgery. It suddenly occurs to me what a dreadful waste of life and hope it would be to grieve for a child who is still with me. I'm racing ahead of myself, embracing a doom that is not certain. After all, hadn't my own aunt been given a similar gloomy forecast for her demise, when both breasts and her lymph glands were removed more than 15 years earlier?
The next day, James takes possession of his new leg, at last. He adjusts to it as if it's just a different kind of shoe and it brings tears to my eyes to see him walking again. It's very heavy (so it won't blow away, apparently) and his muscles will need to grow stronger and the skin of his stump become tougher before he can wear the prosthesis all the time. He manages to wear it to a football match and is doing well with it before his next big operation, a week later.
We're on another ward in a different building in the hospital grounds for this surgery. The anaesthetist asks James what he's going to dream about during the operation.
'Beautiful women,' he replies with a grin.
The surgery lasts for three hours. Waiting doesn't get any easier with practice. The surgeon seems happy with how it's gone. James is only sick once afterwards but it's scary seeing him in the High Dependency Unit (HDU). He has an epidural tube coming out of his back, a catheter, two drains in the wound, a drip attached to his portacath and monitors on his chest and finger. It's extremely hot in the room with beeps, clicks and alarms going all the time. They keep him overnight but are forced to send him back onto the ward early because they need the beds. We aren't sorry, though, because it's so stifling and busy in the HDU we hope James will rest and recover more easily in the main ward.
The surgical ward is strikingly different to the oncology unit. The nurses don't get quite as involved because their patients are only transitory. They aren't trained to use the portacath so very kind nurses come over from the cancer unit to take blood, put in and take out needles, etc. We're very impressed by the number of oncology nurses who pop in just to visit and give James a cuddle. Howard smiles and teases him, when one young nurse comes to see James in the HDU, and the heart monitor betrays a steep rise in his blood pressure. On the plus side, the surgical ward is quieter and more relaxed than the oncology unit.
Browsing in the hospital shop for a treat for James, I meet the mother of another teenager from the cancer wards. Her son also has a tumour in his leg, which hasn't responded to treatment. They seem to be in denial. Her son refuses to even consider or discuss amputation and they feel they have to respect his decision. She's telling me something about his anxiety over acne. My heart goes out to her but I can't think of any words. I say a quick, silent prayer for this family and offer thanks for James' courage.
I learn a few days later that her son has died.
*
The first year, after my mother's death, plays across my memory. Every milestone had an aching resonance; birthdays, traditional family celebrations, personal victories previously shared and everyday bits of news. I found I couldn't bear other teenagers complaining about their mothers.
Somehow, despite our house move, Miss Loomis, my fifth grade teacher, heard about the tragedy and sent me a small book of poetry. I never had the opportunity to thank her but those poems have been very important to me ever since, as has the memory of her thoughtfulness. My favourite is this:
Immortality
Do not stand at my grave and weep... I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush,
I am the swift upflinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry... I am not there. I did not die.
Author Unknown
I came to realise that I didn't need to 'know' what had happened to my mother once she had gone. If this life was it, then she was now beyond pain or infirmity and she had used the life she'd been given well. If there were more, heaven or eternal life, then she would now be immersed in the pure love I had so far merely glimpsed. As for me, I choose not to go to her grave or remember dark dates, rather I enjoy a secret smile when a favourite song or event or even the reflection of my mother's hands, echoed in my own, bring a happy memory to mind.
Another poem, sent to me decades later by a mother who had just lost her twenty-one-year-old daughter, reflects a similar message.
You can shed tears that she is gone Or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back Or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her Or you can be full of love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her and only that she's gone Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
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