Where Stories Begin
Today is the big day.
Or maybe tomorrow. Maybe that’s the big one.
Two months ago, we also had a big day. Violet rang the bell. It was to mark the “end of treatment” - the rite of passage every cancer patient in the ward waits for. On social media I get links to videos of survivors sometimes, ringing the bell and celebrating, with hundreds of thousands of “likes”. Comments from strangers all around the world in agreement about how absolutely wonderful of a thing that is.
I haven’t posted that video yet. Because even though it was the last day we would hopefully have to spend nights in the in-patient ward hooked up to chemotherapy drugs, it wasn’t exactly the end of the journey, yet.
We weren’t ready to celebrate out loud. She still had a month or so of medication at home to take. She still had a central line in her chest. She still had final scans to complete.
As I type this awkwardly on my iPhone, I sit in a chair beside Violet on the table. Her final scan 10 minutes underway. The monitors display digits and data I can’t understand. We still have over an hour of pictures left to take.
We aren’t ready to celebrate yet.
But I got a call at 9:00am from the oncology ward as we were preparing to leave. “We didn’t catch you in the clinic yesterday to give you a time for Violet’s line removal on Friday. Assuming everything goes well, you should be here by 8:30. Nothing to eat past 2:00am. And good luck today.”
But still, not yet…
After I hung up I imagined us returning with the news. Violet without a catheter plugged into her heart. Us without any planned treatments indefinitely. I imagined a party where everyone came and got to celebrate the end of this ungodly journey of hardship.
And then I imagined the alternative, and my heart sank into my toes.
When you get pregnant, they advise you to keep it to yourself until you pass the three month mark. That’s when you pass the “uncertain zone” where miscarriages so frequently occur. The idea is that it will be easier to manage the disappointment and heartache in private rather than to mourn out in the open.
Eight years ago I told everyone I was pregnant. Then, at 12 weeks, I lost it.
I didn’t regret telling anyone. I was sad and it was hard, but I wasn’t alone. Pain wasn’t something to be hidden or ashamed of.
Stories begin at strange moments in time, often in the middle of a million other plot lines. We don’t obsess over starting points as much in life because they seem so often out of our control. Something happens to you and things begin. A new path is forged. A new point of focus.
Endings can be more complicated. Because often we get to decide where it is - we decide what conditions we need to occur in order to “wrap things up” or “take a deep breath” or “let go and move on”.
I have had no idea where to place the finish line on this one. Everyday I read blurbs on cancer-related social media posts about how you never really get to leave this all behind. Side effects, PTSD fear of recurrence - these tie you to a story that can go on and on forever.
In life we are born and we die, but in between we live out mini-dramas that weave in and out and overtop of each other. We frame our lives between beginnings and endings and make up the meaning between them. We decide what matters, so we decide when we want to tie things up in a bow and shelve them into “this meant that to me.”
Right now my baby girl is lying on the same table she did 18 months ago when her blood pressure was nearly fatal and they didn’t know why. I sat here watching the same monitor, barely able to breathe, uncertain of what story I was about to begin.
We’ve done our hero’s journey. We’ve been called to action and have travelled through the underworld to face the demons that lurked there. But now we are returning home, transformed by the experience, armed with wisdom and perspective. Ready for a new story.
This afternoon we will get “the call” - the news if Violet is officially in remission. Or not. But it will be an ending for me, either way. More appropriately, it will be a fresh start. A new story beginning. And another one wrapped up in a bow, whatever color they want to call it.