Yesterday my grandpa was diagnosed with an extremely rare, and extremely advanced, form of stomach cancer. The epitome of the strongest, healthiest, and outdoorsiest 75-year-old man on this planet, I expected to find him in somewhat diminished spirits when my sister and I headed out to Colbert for a visit to discuss his diagnosis and potential treatment options. I think because I was initially devastated, I expected him to be. At one point I even imagined him reveling in ultimate despair, sobbing to himself on the floor. Ridiculous me. My initial and highly presumed assessment of his mental and emotional faculties became disproved almost instantly.
I presumed a somber mood would overcome the visit, and found my assumption grossly, and thankfully, incorrect.
At one point during the visit my sister and I are having a serious cancer conversation with a very optimistic Grandpa Ladish when we notice him switch conversation topics suddenly and unconsciously, and rather than discussing the complexities of stomach cancer, we now find ourselves watching my grandma’s early 90′s Denise Austen exercise video, listening to my grandpa as he explains how great this video is and how Grandma can do all the exercises really well. And he’s just plain excited about it, and my grandma is being adorable, bopping to the video’s beat and moving her arms a bit, like she wants to work out but she can’t right now because she’s chatting with her granddaughters, and anyway she’s not dressed properly. And all the while Theresa and I are doing our best not to collapse from not breathing because we are laughing so hard.
That’s why I adore my family. Because when someone you love gets cancer you think the next time you see them you might cry, or even be silent for awhile, so as to truly absorb the gravity of the situation, because isn’t that what families do when brusque reality comes knocking, bringing the unpleasant reminder of life’s inconstancy? Not my family.
Don’t get me wrong. We cry, we hug, we sit silently (sometimes; OK, rarely). But most of the time we laugh. We laugh because life is serious enough without everyone walking around focusing on its solemnity, and because sometimes there isn’t anything else to be done. We laugh because most of us are pretty damn funny, thank you very much. But mostly we laugh because no matter the austerity of a particular situation, we know we have far more for which to be thankful than we do for which to be embittered.
So, cancer smancer.
If my grandpa decides to fight I remain confident it will be the cancer high-tailing it out of his body, and not my grandpa high-tailing it out of this world. But no matter the outcome of the pending tests, of the subsequent decisions and potential surgeries, my family will remain intact. And my grandpa? He will remain amazing, hilarious, the best bear-hugger on the planet.
I posted a picture of him for a silly Instagram-related game and found him waiting for me in my dreams, something which occurs so rarely it still explodes solidly-constructed dams inside me each time I see his face, mustached and smiling at mine just the way he always did, just the way I always remember him. As usual he didn’t say much, not anything I could hear or remember, but he was there and I knew it, and when I → Read more...
I have words washed out to sea. Words ushered quietly from my lips to my fingertips, waiting patiently for the right tide, for the moon to bring my stories alive.
I have words being reviewed, words accepted and words rejected, and I’m clinging to my favorite lines, fighting for them, and it feels strange and new and exhilaratingly infuriating, this tug-of-war of wills and how the slightest bit of caving can make me feel like I’m flirting with abandoning the sanctity → Read more...
[Alternately titled: Story, The Second: The Girl Who Moved To Washington State]
It began simply. A direct message on Twitter first, followed by texts; those texts, in turn, begat plans. With those plans came anxiety and apprehension – I didn’t know you, not your face or your voice or anything else, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to – but also something exciting, a strange and unexpected hope hovering quietly on the horizon. And then we met, conversed and laughed → Read more...
Stories I said I had. Tangential stories and life-changing ones.
Until today I haven’t known where, exactly, to begin. And so quiet this space has mostly been because some beginnings are tricky. Sometimes it’s quite impossible to denote where something ended and something else entirely began.
I’m not going to be able to tell you everything, but then the best stories never really do, do they?
(That’s not a trick question. I promise they don’t.)
(Unless the story was penned by Henry James, in → Read more...