Fall has arrived, carried on the sharp wash of cool air streaming through the open window in the morning. I wish I could push it back, force the leaves to turn green again, and will summer to stay in place. Time is not our friend, and the change of seasons is yet again a reminder of the puniness of human desire to bend the world to our bidding.
Continue reading The Exquisite and Fragile Joy of Life in Uncertainty
Colin has had a wonderful summer and really relished being at home. Most significantly, he has enjoyed a renaissance of himself: he is engaged, motivated, curious and vibrant. If Colin finds an adult to buttonhole in a conversation, his engine will start and keep going. On our return from Memphis, he consumed the entire flight from Philadelphia to Ithaca regaling a new friend on a variety of subjects. The real resurgence started shortly after leaving Memphis and has only continued since then.
Colin lies down on the table, head nestled in a custom head rest that still contains long strands of the hair we had to cut off a week before. I help him settle into his spot, but he knows the drill better than I do. I straighten his head and the tech puts the mask in place. He closes his eyes under the plastic mesh without complaint and she rotates clips that keep it in firmly in place during treatment. They show me how they line him up, red lines crossing to match pen marks on his skin that they redraw over small tattooed dots and lines on the chin of the mask.
Colin has completed 13 of 30 radiation treatments and is more than halfway through the portion of treatment (20 sessions) that involves the whole brain and spine. This is our lucky 13, lucky in so many ways. We are lucky to be here at all and witnessing the joy of a child who had been slipping away from us only a month ago. We are lucky that he is cruising through treatment and cooperative with the process.
Clouds ascend like sculptures, backlit by the setting sun. Wispy pink columns stand in dramatic array, the clump on top of one stack embellished with a viciously straight contrail that angles upward like a laser beaming from a cyclopean eye. It is a tiny thing but still audacious enough to pitch a galactic battle against an unseen enemy. The day closes over the Mississippi, with stormheads threatening their bounty of rain from the south. Colin and I have left the gentle wash of music and companionship of old friends on Mud Island, a sanctuary of gentile life only a stone’s throw from the urban grittiness that awaits patiently on the east shore of the mighty river.
Continue reading Same as it Never Was
Winter snuck by us, a few bouts of snow and frigid air between Christmas and Easter only mockingly reminiscent of winter last year, which came with a roar and didn’t budge, reluctantly giving way to spring. By contrast, even just at the turn of the New Year, spring felt close at hand. We were unfortunately fortunate enough to be away much of this disappointing winter; as skiers, we weren’t missing much back home while we skipped off to Hawaii and, not long after, the Bahamas to the resort Atlantis. During the latter trip and the visit to Camp Sunshine in Maine soon after, the shadow of the fateful MRI in Dallas tracked us. The cold invisible fingers of that news, the dreaded and relentless progression of disease, were impossible to shake off, even in the warmth of the blinding sun.
When we finally arrived in Boston to start proton therapy for Colin, the branches were already bare in Ithaca, but many of the trees along the Charles were still holding their color. The ginkos are just now releasing a carpet of yellow fans on the sidewalk. The night before we left Ithaca, the sky was crystal clear and full of stars; celestial bodies struggle to emerge above the cityscape, though Venus is tenacious in shining through the urban smudge. Continue reading Never Give Up
A few weeks ago, I heard the first doleful honks of Canada geese overhead, a broken vee portending the migration towards more temperate weather. This spurred me to mourn my loss of the change of seasons and a move into the crisp air of fall that is so invigorating, brightened by the cascade of brilliant leaves. Color has barely begun to kiss the tall, verdant maples in the neighborhood, a transition we would lose with our decision to migrate, like those geese, southward to Memphis. Continue reading Of Mice and Little Boys
The sky was muddy, a diffuse and dark reddish brown the disappointing color of light pollution, not an emerging dawn. It was no kind of sky within which to find clarity. Two days before, a sharp waning crescent hung in the sky, a cat’s claw poised to grab Venus, which hung like a winking fat jewel in the eastern sky. Then, Orion had greeted me abruptly in the south when I opened my door, the only constellation I could rightly make out in a tepid but clear sky. In the course of a short run, that bright figure faded into barely perceptible pinpricks, but the hunter still stood vigil. Continue reading Decisionation
Leaves are starting to fall off the yellow poplar in the back yard, a tree I love for its huge waxy-plastic seeming flowers and the wide tulip-shaped leaves. The season is starting to turn gently, the weather still summerly but the yellowing leaves around the neighborhood serving as a reminder that school starts next week and life returns to that normal cycle. Except that it doesn’t, not for us. We are currently on a decision making hold, but the cascade of events that will follow looms ahead heavily. Continue reading Autumn’s Arrival