Spring Snow

Sun sleet

I began writing this post on March 31. We had been home for over a week. And now I sit beside the window, once again staring out at the downtown Vancouver skyline, a million emotions risen and fallen in between.

On March 31 it was sunny, 10 degrees, and snowing.

Well, hailing was more like it. Or was it sleet? Whatever it was, it slowly layered the ground with tiny pebbles of white that bounced off the delicate petals beginning to form from spring buds.

Violet was on the couch with her friend. She had been waiting to see her for months. Actually, she had been waiting just to sit on the couch for that long, in her own home, without the poking and prodding of medical hands.

Since then it’s just been me, poking at her with my heparin locks and dressings, nagging her with my words. “Did you remember to take your Ondansetron? Are you feeling ok? Can you please try to eat something this morning?”

But she didn’t really mind. And neither did I. It was small potatoes. The annoyances of this illness at that moment seemed almost irrelevant. We were home. Who cared about anything else?

I asked the girls if they wanted to come out with me on the deck to feel the rain (or hail, or snow…). Violet said she was too tired. “I’m sick, mom. It’s cold.” Fair enough. But I also couldn’t fully relate. Not to that one. I had been waiting too long for fresh, Okanagan air (or fresh air at all) and opportunities to experience “weather”. This was weather you pay attention to.

The air was warm and welcoming, and the sun felt like long weekend camping and beach days and summer hikes. But the shower of ice was also acute prickles on the skin that jarred the senses. It muddled expectation. It was intoxicating in its own miniscule way. It was a metaphor for so much that I was feeling.

Everything felt surreal. Disorienting. Chimerical (sorry, I had to use this one – it came up as a synonym for surreal, but also references Violet’s upcoming “chimeric” immunotherapy treatment). We were home, but we couldn’t stay. We were “back”, but had moved so far ahead. We were upside down, inside out and sideways. 

But it was invigorating and exciting and overwhelming. It was bliss and bewilderment and beauty. 

It was a moment in time that I took full advantage of. Taking stock and settling in. Allowing things to wash over me like a river.

We arrived at home to balloons and fireworks in the front yard. Our next-door neighbours greeted us with hugs and smiles and tears. When we walked in, the dining table was covered in cards and bottles of wine. The fridge was full, and the freezer, with homemade meals and all the necessities. The girls’ rooms had been completely made over by the most talented team of friends, and even our room had fresh bedding to slip into.

How a person is supposed to process this kind of generosity is beyond me, but I tried. I am trying - trying to let it all in, let it all flow, let it all be. As it turns out, this has been one of the greatest challenges of this journey – to let in the love. Strange, considering it is the thesis on life I preach to everyone. Let the love flow. Be a part of the greater good, take care of others and allow the universe to take care of you. But when it does, when it really does show you the good stuff, it’s difficult to accept. Because why should I be so lucky to have this kind of love?

It’s easier to accept when it’s also for your children. Anything that makes my kids’ lives easier, better, richer, is welcomed with open arms. If I get in the way of that, it’s only ego. And a mother’s love trumps that nonsense.

But still…if I could only express that aching appreciation I have for everyone…

Violet and Lucy and Matt and Ella and I were under one roof – our roof – for over two weeks. My intention was to see everyone, do everything I could to share Violet with our community and give them first-hand knowledge that she is doing ok, and that their contributions have made such a significant difference.

But the time passed so quickly. I spent over 8 hours a day, every day, just sorting through boxes and cupboards and cabinets. Pulling weeds. Clearing up the chaos.

I didn’t get far, but in the end, I needed it. We all did. Time to sift through the rubble and try to make sense of some of it. Violet is still vulnerable, still weak and unsure, so despite some opportunities to catch up, she needed quiet. And I did too, despite the nagging guilt of not being more “out there”.

I have tried to organize the emotions in my mind, to catalogue how I have felt being back in the place I love so dearly, so close to the people that have become so intimately important to me that don’t even know it. Over those two weeks I would drive down the hill looking out at the lake in all its epic glory and try to process thoughts about how lucky I am. But in that kind of cascade, thoughts don’t have time to crystalize. It’s more like a hum of joy than a ticker tape of ideas. Like when you close your eyes in the sun and just let it warm your skin. No words necessary.

And I tried my best to stop the chatter and let that warmth take over for awhile. And it did. It melted so much grief and fear and longing.

But yesterday morning after dropping Lucy off at her very first day of kindergarten, Violet and I journeyed back to Ronald McDonald House to begin our next round. Today I sit in the clinic, waiting for Violet’s aestheticians to put her under for a bone marrow biopsy, feeling something between homecoming and unease, trying not to hold my breath as I dive back down into the depths of this. Tomorrow Violet gets a PET scan – her detailed “check-up” to evaluate our progress. She is already in a panic about her IV insertion, and I about anticipating results. How have we done? How is her body responding? What will this mean as we move forward?

Scary shit. Michael Buble, whose four-year-old son battled liver cancer, termed this “scanxiety”. I get it. The unknown made known. The fear that it will be bad news. But for whatever reason, the fear factor is minimal. I know she’s kicking ass. I don’t need the validation. But I want it. I want an excuse to celebrate.

There’s a delicate dance that plays out in my head now, all the time. That dance is between being satisfied with what is and wanting something more. Being present and looking forward. Not needing any specific condition to be happy, but being “happier” when good things happen. They are contradictory perspectives, but they are both relevant to a happy life. 

When you live in this “cancer reality”, life is a prickly, fragile, fine-grained way of being. It is a hyper-aware presence, where every moment is heightened by the background hum of uncertainty. It can be utterly exhausting, but it truly is a gift. When you can’t take anything for granted, you pay attention, all the time. 

That day on the patio, the air may have been warm and comfortable, but there were constant flickers of ice tickling the skin, arousing the senses. Defamiliarization, all the time. A making strange of what is.

To say that things feel strange right now is an understatement. My baby girl has finally started school, and I am getting updates through Facebook and video chats. My other baby is about to enter into what has been described to me as “typically fairly agonizing” treatment – immunotherapy for four days that causes severe nerve pain throughout her body. And here I am, looking out over the city at cherry blossoms and birds, feeling scared and sad and overwhelmingly happy.

Truly. Overwhelmingly happy.

God, life is one crazy mess of an experience. But so good. So rich and chaotic and interesting. Never boring. And in the end, never disappointing. And when it gets too comfortable, too easy to take for granted, we get these sparks on the skin to wake us up, defamiliarize us, and make us pay attention.