When my wife was diagnosed, it was more shock than immediate sadness. A private “this can’t be right” moment with dull gray images of sickly sufferers popping in my head in stark contrast to the glowing, stunningly beautiful, seemingly healthy, trembling and sobbing treasure enfolded in my arms.
And in both cases, separated by only a few years, the realization shook me to the core.
‘Not bossy’
My mom was a staunch believer in the “doctors never give you good news, so why go” philosophy on aging. Pains here and aches there were considered signs of growing old and, in mom’s mind, easily cured by more time in the garden and more chores on her and dad’s to-do list.
She was the lone woman in the house who supervised the upbringing of three fairly strong-willed boys with a simple policy — one emblazoned on a T-shirt some brave soul in the family gave her years later: “I’m not bossy, I just have better ideas.” If we wanted to play sports, we damn well better play hard. And no matter what, be home in time for piano practice. She took me to a youth baseball game once and made me play barefooted because I had left my shoes in the yard and a dog chewed them to pieces. I was embarrassed at the start, but when I got a hit she stood and cheered the loudest as I rounded the bases.
At a youth basketball game, my full-grown head coach instructed me to go up in the stands and take her whistle away. The referees were complaining because she was calling fouls they apparently couldn’t see and when told to take care of the problem, my coach wisely passed the buck.
When I skipped Thanksgiving one year to travel with my soon-to-be wife, mom clung to her grudge like a snapping turtle. For weeks working in the same office, every conversation was snippy and brief. It bothered her more than me, but the stubbornness and determination to endure was relentless. Had Christmas, and Mom’s traditional commitment to provide as much holiday hospitality and food as humanly possible, not arrived when it did, the iciness might have lingered.
So here was this unbelievably determined and strong — those who don’t depend on her for supper now and then might even call her bull-headed — woman, shrunken and shaken, coping with the possibility that her husband and her boys would have to manage without her. We knew she’d fight, but she didn’t think she could win. She did what the doctors told her, she endured the treatments, she survived the surgery and, balled up in bed, bald and barely awake, she asked how her grandkids were doing.
True competitor
My wife is deep-down a tomboy, more likely to send someone to the doctor than go herself. As a triplet in a small town, Sandy grew up receiving all kinds of attention as one of three, but rarely as an individual. In part, that’s what drove her to excel at everything, academics, athletics and exercise, and to never accept defeat.
She competes with a driven passion, determined to win in soccer and scrabble as well as in rankings of standardized test score results for the high school students she teaches. She once sliced open her foot kicking the bleachers in disgust when the girls basketball team she was coaching failed to grasp her instructions. She knocked herself out cold in an effort to be one of the guys on a four-wheeling excursion, on ski trips she wants to be fastest and smoothest, and on rafting adventures it’s important that she’s the one who falls out of the boat last.
There’s also a family trait of finding humor in almost anything. Not long after we were married, I dashed barefooted into the kitchen to answer the phone, unaware she had very recently mopped the floor. A few seconds later, flat on my back with eight toes safely under the cabinet overhang but both broken big toes awkwardly angled backward, I heard a squawking cackle. With tears in her eyes and belly-straining laughter rolling from her lips, she managed, between wheezes, to ask if I was okay. If I had needed it, she would have carried me to the car and driven me to the hospital, laughing all the way. When my dad’s mom first met her, she said Sandy smiled with her eyes. Momma Hilda liked her immediately and Momma Hilda knew people.
Sandy watched her mom struggle and eventually lose a battle with cancer and, only a few months later, lost her dad to ailments that could basically be traced simply to a broken heart. Those experiences, and thoughts of our daughter Braelyn, drove her even more to stay fit and healthy.
Then, after a persistent infection outlasted the desire to avoid doctors, she got the breast cancer verdict. So here was this unbelievably determined and strong — those who don’t depend on her every day for friendship and love might even say bullheaded — woman, shattered by an out-of-the-blue diagnosis, facing the knowledge that her husband and child would crumble without her. We knew she’d fight and, if anyway possible, win. She did what the doctors told her, she endured the treatments and surgery. Bald and bandaged, she pined for her next adventure.
Celebration
Last week, as they gathered for a photo session, local breast cancer survivors laughed, hugged and shared knowing glances amid the warmth of a powerful, unspoken sisterhood. At one point, smaller groups, including “chemo buddies” and others who had met at church, gym or social gatherings and developed friendships initially forged by fear but eventually steel-bonded by a passion to not only survive, but to shine as testimonials to the power and importance of cherishing life, posed for separate pictures with their special friends. Sandy and mom grabbed me and I got to be their connection. Embraced by both, basking in the moment and acutely aware of the love I feel for both, it hit me by surprise, like it always does, what I could have lost. What others in eerily similar circumstances have lost. I held on tight.
Sunday, just a few days after the pictures, we celebrated mom’s 77th birthday. She, of course, wanted to cook, but we didn’t let her. After lunch, with mom smiling, taking pictures and, as usual, offering ideas of how to do the job better, we put up a small greenhouse beside her garden. This winter, they’ll be plenty of chores for her and dad.
In just over a month, Sandy and I celebrate our 22nd wedding anniversary. I‘m not sure what we’ll do, or where we’ll go, but she’ll probably be better at it and beat me there. The tomboy in her won’t let her wear pink, but nevertheless, the color remains a reminder, entrenched and interwoven, always, in the fabric of our lives.
