The Silent Way

What a way to die, I thought. I looked down at my freckled arm, imagining a world of blood cells and marrow beneath. To be betrayed, destroyed, by my very bone. To…to die from the inside out.

I looked up, and the doctor in front of me bowed his head in sympathy.

“How long,” I ask, “do I have?”

The man paused, seemingly pained by the words that were inevitably coming out of his mouth. “A few months,” he finally said. “Untreated, that is.”

“And with treatment?”

He paused again. “A year. Maybe.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “A…a year? That’s all the time you can give me?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the doctor said, lowering his head again, “that you had to learn this far into it.”

I had walked into that white-washed building with pneumonia, for Pete’s sake! How could I come out with…with cancer??

I couldn’t sleep that night, and as I stared at the green generic curtains, the gravity of it finally hit me.

I was dying. I would be gone this time next year. I would never see another spring, hear the first robin of the year, or build a snowman with my grandchildren.

I wouldn’t be here.

Finally, after all that had happened that day, I wept into the starched pillow, letting the salt in my tears soften it. I sobbed for all I had lost. A nurse prowling in the hallway must have heard me. She entered my room, and I wrapped my frail arms around her, and she cradled me like a child. She let me rest my head on her shoulder, understanding I couldn’t hold it high anymore.

And I wondered bitterly how many others she had held, just like this, when they learned they were dying. I wondered how many dreams had been shattered by the knowledge of impending doom. I wondered how many families had been ripped apart by this silent disease. I wondered until I couldn’t hold on to consciousness anymore, and sank into the black. The nurse laid my head against a new pillow, and quietly exited the room.

I didn’t want to tell my wife and kids the next day. They came, my daughter bearing fresh carnations for my bedside table. I smiled like everything was alright, like I wasn’t dying, like I didn’t have leukemia. But, it turned out that the doctor had already told them, and I was nearly bear-hugged to death.

I will never use that phrase again. Because I am heading into that chasm, to death.

But, the part I hated the most, of my cancer, of my draining of life day by day and coming death, was they already acted like I was dead, like I was already still and cold. I wanted to yell, “Hey! I’m still alive! I’m still breathing, you know!”

Instead, I said, “Hand me those flowers. I want to smell them.”

With a trembling hand, my daughter gave them to me. I made sure mine was steady as I grasped them. I inhaled deeply, then breathed out slowly and smiled. “They smell like spring,” I said. “Thank you.”

I resolved to myself, then and there, as I clutched the blooming red flowers to my chest, that I would be strong. I would put on a strong face for my family, because they needed me to be. I would be brave, and face chemotherapy with a calm face and resolve. I would.

It’s been a few weeks since then. A month and a half, to be exact. It’s hard to be strong now. Chemo has sapped my strength, and its harder to be brave when I know I will spend my night puking, but I’m going to try. I need to try, for my family.

I can’t walk anymore, but I sit tall, and hold my bald head as high as I can. When death comes softly, I want to look it in the eye.

I don’t know how long I would have lived if I lived for myself. But I’m living for my family. Every day I get up and do my best. For them.

I eat the mystery soup. For them.

I go through chemo. For them.

I lie back and count my breaths, finish sudoku puzzles, watch reality TV shows. For them.

My wife has sold the house and moved into an apartment. Preperation for when…when I can’t take care of her anymore. My children have set up schedules for who and when people will take her to the store for her to buy groceries. My wife is nearly 85, and still doesn’t have her license. I wonder if she ever will. She insists on taking cabs everywhere. I assume that won’t change.

It is late spring out, and winter’s chill is losing it’s grip on the land. I am sitting outside, on the hospital’s lawn overlooking a shallow and lazy stream. I feel my days shortening now. I can almost feel death taking a little more of me each day.

White fingers tighten the red blanket over my hunched shoulders. I look up, and my wife smiles down on me.

Not today, I think to myself. Not today.