Just got back at midnight last night from a vacation with my sons and Jed's significant other at Zion National Park and in Los Angeles. A terrific nine or ten days' respite from thinking of myself as a "sickie." No doctors; no chemo infusions. Just beautiful scenery (we also drove through Bryce Canyon); some short hikes; a truly spectacular Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas; and lots of good conversation and love. In LA, I saw my long-time (since college) friends Claire and Deborah, and also my sister Paula who, like Deborah, lives in San Diego County. They drove something like six hours round-trip on very rainy freeways to spend a few hours with me.
I have been trying to get away from Madison for at least a long weekend every month. I really do feel much more like a normal person when I'm not in the shadow of the hospital (almost literally, since I live within walking distance). And of course it's wonderful to see my kids, my sisters, old friends, and I'm happy that they really want to see me. But on this trip, I became very aware of the complicated balancing act required to satisfy other people's desire to spend time with me, and my desire to live my life as normally as possible for as long as possible.
Since the beginning of last summer, I have had a lot of visitors: friends and family who have come to Madison for as little as a few days or as much as a week. They want to spend time with me, and of course when they're here, I want to spend time with them. But when you combine the time I have spent traveling and the time I've had visitors, and then add in the days I'm out of commission because of chemo and its effects, there are not a lot of consecutive days left to live my normal Madison life: spending time with Madison friends, practicing cello, writing.... For me, that's very frustrating. It's not just that I like solitude (which I do). Every visitor, and every day I spend with visitors, is a reminder that my life is not "normal." Much as I love all these people, I hate the reminders.
When we were at Zion, my older son, who just finished his first semester of law school, told me that he was taking a leave from school so that he could spend more time hanging out with me. He has what seem to me legitimate academic goals that he wants to accomplish during the next several months, and his professors agree that taking the time away from classes to write a paper that could be published is a good idea. The school will welcome him back when he returns, and will hold his scholarship for him. So the idea that he would take a leave was not hard for me to accept.
But then he said he'd come to Madison to hang out with me for three weeks each month! I was, I'm afraid, very visibly and vocally appalled. I'm flattered and touched by the idea that my son wants to spend more time with me. I appreciate his desire to be helpful, though at the moment my minimal needs for help (with shoveling snow or preparing for a party) are easily met by friends and neighbors. And I understand that it's important for him now, and will be important for him when, eventually, I die, to have spent time with me--though in my experience, one never feels one has had enough time with people who are no longer around. Still, how do I reconcile all this appreciation and understanding of his needs with my own needs and desires for solitude and for not perceiving myself as a "sickie." How can I even pretend my life is normal if my grown son leaves his home and his girlfriend 2,000 miles away to hang out with me three weeks out of every month?
Well, we compromised. This month he will come for a week or ten days, and he will do his work and I will live my ordinary Madison life, and we'll have dinner together occasionally, or take in a movie, or go for a walk, and we'll see how it goes. But it feels like a balancing act that the Cirque du Soleil might accomplish more successfully than I.
By chance, when I went to the airport this afternoon to pick up my fog-delayed suitcase, I met an old friend, a retired attorney who's close to 80, who'd just returned from spending a month in Seattle where his daughter has started treatment for ovarian cancer. When I told him about my son's desire to spend three weeks a month with me, my friend strongly urged me to let him do it. He didn't change my mind. But I was interested in his reaction, and I'd really welcome your comments and reflections on this conundrum.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
As someone that lost my mother to cancer in July, I think that it's very important that you either allow him to visit you OR come to a fair compromise. I agree with you that three weeks out of the month is TOO MUCH. You need *you* time, too-- Chemo is exhausting! --and you don't want to be pressured to feel like you have to entertain him-- nor should you feel like you're on "death watch" by your son. However, it's going to be very important for him to not have any regrets. It was very hard to honor my mother's wishes and not drive to Milwaukee every other day to visit her-- if she told me she was too tired, then I trusted that she was too tired-- but we also spent some real quality time together. I learned things about my family history that I never would have known if I hadn't of spent this extra time. If spending more time with you or near you is going to help your son with his grieving process, then please allow him to do so--- I think your compromise is great! One week to ten days a month is fine-- and if you need him more then that, then I'm sure you'll call him. Just reassure him that he'll be the first person you call if you want company. I look back with tears in my eyes (of joy) and such a fondness for those days that I spent with my mother while she was healthy.
I hope that makes sense.
It seems to me that much as you love your friends and your children, you need to feel like you're in charge of your life, especially when the medical establishment and the illness makes you feel powerless at times. In the fight against illness, you're the general and all of us soldiers need to take orders from you about how and when you need our help and our visits.
In taking care of my friend Shar, family was always welcome. Even then, though, Shar would often say, "Don't come by today! I've just had chemo and I'm devoting my day to staying as close to the bathroom as I can!"
With friends the biggest problem was how much she loved her friends and how bravely she tried to keep up appearances. Most of her friends never saw how debilitating their visits were because she bravely tried not to show how tired they made her. Towards the end and with her permission, we finally asked folks not to come by unless Shar had invited them. Just after the diagnosis, to keep all her friends in touch with her, I taught her how to keep a blog! I still have friends tell me how much they cherished reading her blog and staying in touch that way. At first I mainly wrote in her blog about how she was doing and her treatments, but once she got the hang of blogging she loved staying in touch with her friends that way. Many of her blog entries were amazingly intimate, so her friends could feel like they were still connected to her, knew what was going on with her treatment, and yet were not tiring her out by coming by to see how she was doing. Also, the blog allowed her to say difficult things to her family and friends, things that would have been a lot more difficult sometimes to acknowledge face-to-face. The blog allowed her to keep some sense of normalcy in her life. Your friends need to understand that they'd feel very weird if everyone they knew wanted to come over and help every day!
If life were only simple and easy! Spending time with family and friends is very important, but also maintaining a regular order to one's life is also important so that the cancer is not allowed to disrupt your life any more than is necessary. I think the damn thing about Shar's cancer was that each day was a struggle to keep as close to "normal" as possible. Whatever it took to give that sense of normalcy was so important in the fight against the illness and its effects.
Lastly, I think you need to tell friends and even family members who are not being helpful, "Hey, you're not being helpful. I need all my energy to fight this illness and if you're not helping me I need you to leave for a while." That needs to be balanced by your love for them and your desire to spend quality time with them. It's something that changes day-to-day, hour-to-hour. It is, as you say, a balancing act. But always both family and friends should understand that you are the one calling the shots and that you're trying to keep some sense of balance in a world that's often unbalanced by things out of your control.
I might be out of line here, friend, but you might give your son's idea a try, with both of you acknowleding that if it's not working, you'll both try to find another way to maintain the intimacy and at the same time give you the sense of being in control you really need right now! In the fight against cancer, one of the most important weapons is honesty.
Joe
Dear Judy,
I think you already know that I agree with the man at the airport, that you should welcome/encourage Jed's desire to spend time with you. (I also think it's interesting that sometimes a 'chance' encounter has a stronger impact than our rational, or more considered processes.)
But I also think you need to follow your heart, and to take care of yourself -- so compromising at ten days a month, or whatever, makes good senses.
One way to balance Jed's needs for more contact with your need not to be perceived as a 'sickie' is to use the time together to get out, and do stuff you want to do. You will both need to preserve your independence, but the time alone together will allow for some conversations that otherwise might not take place.
Love,
Claire
Post a Comment