NET cancer and exhaustion
I’m sorry. I could not write about NET cancer–or much of anything else–yesterday. I had good intentions but things combined to take me down.
I guess that means she’s happy about what I am doing.
I woke up early yesterday. I was in a hotel room. I had a pretty good idea how tired I would be after Sunday’s Marathon Walk and had arranged not to have to drive any further than the eight miles from the parking lot in Hopkinton to the hotel. I fell asleep by 8:45 p.m.
Visits
I drove back to Fall River. On the way I picked up some flowers. Yesterday was the 21-month anniversary of Jane’s death from NET cancer. I stopped at the cemetery to visit her grave.
I left both the flowers and my captain’s cap there. I added three small stones–one for her, one for me, one for us–to the pile I build there until some cemetery worker sweeps them aside. I talked to her a bit–felt the tears well up as they always do on the tenth of the month.
And suddenly it was 8:15.
I visited briefly with my in-laws and then with my neighbor. He has just been told he has a tumor in his brain. I knew he was going to get the biopsy results that afternoon. This morning I learned the tumor is–in fact–malignant.
I also learned that one of my former
students lost her grandfather to cancer this weekend while I was pounding out the miles for the Jimmy Fund Walk.
Home at last
I hobbled up the stairs, unpacked my suitcase and started the laundry. My shirts were still wet from the day before.
Jane haunted my day–the effect multiplied by the exhaustion of two fitful nights’ sleep and the 26.2 miles of the Boston Marathon route.
They asked for my last name.
And my memories of Sunday haunted me as well. I walked 23.2 miles largely alone with my own thoughts. This year they were less about Jane’s final days in the hospital and more about our lives before the cancer–and my life since her death. And when the walk was done there were two surprises waiting for me.
NET cancer surprise #1
About three miles out from the finish I got a call from the group who had started at the halfway point. They wanted to meet me at the finish line and wanted to know how far out I was and when I might get there. They cheered me across the line and I screamed “Victory” again, then recited the haiku I had composed in my head. I talked to them for a bit, recited the haiku to them, and encouraged them to come back again next year.
I woke up early yesterday. I was in a hotel room.
By that point I was desperate for something that looked like real food as opposed to Gatorade and energy bars. And I wanted to put that haiku on the Memory Wall. After hugging and shaking hands with the rest of the team, I went off to take care of those things, then stopped by the information tent to find out a couple of things.
NET cancer surprise #2
They asked for my last name. When I gave it to them they said something to the effect of–“Oh, you’re Harry!” It turns out everyone in the Development Office knows about Walking with Jane, about Jane and who she was and who she is…and me and what I am trying to do.
…one for her, one for me, one for us…
Caught up in the daily writing and researching and bookkeeping etc., that all this entails I failed to realize that we have also built a considerable reputation in the cancer community far beyond what I would expect us to have at this point.
And suddenly it was 8:15. And my eyes were closing.
NET cancer surprise #3
I slept soundly last night and at 6:30–an hour earlier than usual–I was awake. I got up and walked down the hall as the sun was peaking through the trees across the street. The light was golden–like the light in the church on the day of our wedding–and it was striking a photograph of Jane and me outside the church with Champagne glasses in our hands.
Yesterday was the 21-month anniversary of Jane’s death…
And I thought, “I guess that means she’s happy about what I am doing.”
NET cancer, you are really in trouble now.
