| they were rich by my standards, and had flown in from everywhere to stand deathwatch. we had family conferences every day until i just couldn't take it anymore. i kept it simple-- she has cancer. it is everywhere. people gave me tips: use the phrase "eating up". it is eating up her liver, it is eating up her bones, it is eating up her lungs. but they were too busy to hear.
they were busy staring in their own off off off broadway production of king lear-- the "good" daughter and the "bad" daughter were constantly switching places, the "reliable" son and the "no good" son, all these seemingly reasonable people swarming and re-grouping and lashing out. highlights included the night we had to call the police to re-establish at least a physical peace, the afternoon she lolled delirious in bed while they passed the phone to one another so i could get consent for an emergency procedure, the strange two years of silence after her diagnosis when (i never did figure it out) she went home either obediently or defiantly to die, claiming they told her there was "nothing they could do" (which, just so you know, isn't and can't be true, but who knows what people hear when other people are talking, particularly when those other people are doctors telling you you have cancer.)
she presided over the whole affair from her bed, alternately the imperious matriarch, the kindly church lady surrounded by bibles and pictures of God, the helpless invalid victim of our conflicting agendas (i had one, too, of course-- i had a tube i wanted in her, some radiation to her back, a hormone blocker...-- good ideas, i thought, but then maybe their ideas looked good to them, too), and, of course, the wronged mother of selfish children (which ones were in the wrong at any given time shifted hourly, you just couldn't keep up.) she would agree to anything i suggested, teary-eyed and grateful. it was impossible to tell what she really wanted. in the end it just wore away at me. i stopped trying to figure out what she wanted, stopped trying to tell which of her children were acting out of love and which weren't, and ended up, out of desperation, calling the shots. you will have radiation therapy. you will have hormone therapy, you will have this tube in your chest, and you will have home hospice.
over time, one by one, the family flew home. after a while, everything sort of knit together-- radiation was set up, hospice was set up, the tube was in and working, oncology would see her in a week. i sent for all the equipment and nursing she would need to leave the hospital, and the deathwatch was postponed, but not for long. the tumor was still there, pushing its way out of her breast. the family was still there, hovering in their respective far-away cities, ready to swoop in again and tear each other to bits. in the end, i was the only one who really left. |
