My day without NET

I had a quiet day yesterday. In the morning, a friend and I drove out to Cape Cod to see another friend inducted into the Hall of Fame of an organization he volunteers for. On the way out, we caught up on the little things going on in our lives. On the way back, we talked about another friend dealing with brain cancer. We are part of a group that gets him to his appointments and such.

…it didn’t matter what cancer took Jane.

After we parted, I went to a local mall to do some shopping. I felt tired, so I got a cup of coffee and sat at a quiet table and listened to the Christmas music. I watched families coming and going. Some went to visit a lonely Santa in the middle of the mall.

Time without memories

Jane and I used to walk there on cold winter mornings or hot summer days when walking outside was more than either of us wanted to do. But I didn’t think about that as I sat there. I drank my coffee and watched and listened. I wondered if this was what normal was like when you’re a widower on a quiet Saturday afternoon.

 I watched families coming and going.

After a while, I got up. I had some things I wanted to get. I bought a new charging wire for my phone so I could have one in the car and not have to remember to take the one from the house when I went out somewhere. Next, I bought a dietary supplement to help with the still-unexplained neuropathy in my feet. I went into an antique store and saw the price on a table I like had gone down another $10.

Quiet distractions

I saw a store I like has begun a going-out-of-business sale. I’m friendly with the manager and staff there. They told me they all had other jobs waiting for them with other companies after the store closes. But I will miss them. They’ve become a part of my limited social circle–and a part that lets me forget for a few minutes about Jane’s death because they never knew her.

I drank my coffee and watched and listened. 

I came home and ate and had a glass of wine. The phone rang and I spent two hours talking with an old friend in Canada. His wife seems to have fought off breast cancer. He gets a piece of what I’ve encountered: he knows the fear when you hear those words about someone you love. He lives in western Canada now, and we rarely get to talk.

A quiet awakening

He hung up to have dinner and I read for a bit. I did a little writing and checked to make sure nothing existed in my inbox I needed to deal with. Again, I thought, this must be what the world is like for a widower who has lost his wife to a “normal” disease. Yes, the house is too quiet and the rooms too empty. Maybe he walks on a Relay for Life team or does the Jimmy Fund Walk. But maybe his life is not consumed by cancer.

I came home and ate and had a glass of wine.

And then, I woke up this morning. I thought about all the people I know fighting to survive other types of cancer. I thought about a friend going in for a biopsy next month. I thought about the news I got Friday night that a former student had died of breast cancer last week. At that moment, I remembered who I am and the way I deal with things.

Grow where you’re planted

The truth: it didn’t matter what cancer took Jane. In a sense, it was better it was something rare that almost no one was doing much about. Breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, all have legions of people working on them. NET cancer needed me–and, perhaps, I needed it.

…I remembered who I am…

Otherwise, I might be sipping coffee in a mall somewhere, watching other people go about their lives. It would be a quiet life–but not a very productive one.