Day 73

It has been 5 days since the man on the other end of the phone muttered Cancer. Since then, the days have expanded to make room for our fear and anger and uncertainty. Mostly there is uncertainty. Everyday there are new questions: What will happen? How long? What then? Waiting for the answers is hell, especially because we know that the road ahead will be filled with more uncertainty. Somehow we have to find a way to stop waiting and start living again.

This morning I woke up to the pressures of a new week: a week that is totally unaware and unsympathetic to cancer. There are groceries to buy and food to prepare and papers to grade. I was thinking about these obligations as I walked into the kitchen for a caffeine fix. There was a puddle on the floor around the dishwasher.

"It's leaking," Bill said.

I imagined myself sitting on the floor in front of the dishwasher, sobbing. It's not fair, we don't deserve a broken dishwasher. I can't deal with a broken dishwasher, now! I imagined myself dragging the old, broken down piece of shit out to the yard. I saw myself swinging a sledgehammer, busting the thing to pieces, pulverizing it into tiny bits of plastic and metal. I imagined how good it would feel to destroy the damn thing.

Occasionally I find myself thinking about this commitment I have made to the creative life. It seems impossible to create in the presence of a diabolic enemy like cancer, an enemy that threatens someone you treasure. And yet, the sad and simple truth is that I can do little else. I can't take a sledgehammer to the cancer. The only thing I can do is to pay attention and try to make something beautiful from the tiny bits of plastic and metal left behind.