Re-adjusting the Course

The patchwork land spreads out under a hazy layer of clouds as my regional jet wings its way from the plains to the Great Lakes. As we climb, a patchwork of clouds floats below us, like whipped cream on green Jell-o.

My ‘aunt’ Donna waits for me there, ready to be my hand-holder and confidante and mirth-maker while I finally finish the last leg of recovery from StupidCancer.

I realize with a jolt that I forgot my headphones – which is funny, because Jonathan forgot his, too, when he left for Kuwait yesterday. Both of our headphones are in our bedroom back in Texas where neither of us are. HA

I also realize with a jolt that it is nearly exactly three years since I first made this flight to Chicago, to get in the limo for the Cancer Center.

At forty-one, I was a buxom blonde with shoulder length curls wishing she had a man in her life who’d know her and understand her, a mom with one kid out of high school and, one finishing up, and one just starting. I’d landed a position in sales and book reviews at the local newspaper, and after more than a few years of struggling to keep us all in macaroni and cheese with a roof over our heads while battling my oldest’s chronic blood disorder, I found out I had cancer.

Really??

The plague of poverty and loneliness wasn’t enough to keep me in check? Cancer?

Breast cancer? Really? I’d done all the right things, nursed my kids, lived on green tea and asparagus for years, and for what? Cancer. Cancer in my breasts, the one thing I thought defined me as a woman.

I got personal with my boys one day in the kitchen, telling them I was angry with God that I had cancer in the very places that I bonded with them as babies. Even though it made them uncomfortable, they knew that day how much mother-love I had for them, and someday, when their wives nursed their babies, they’ll understand how much overwhelming love those women have for those little squeaking bundles.

After three years of chemo days, hair loss, multiple surgeries, two more graduations, finding the love of my life and coming to terms with my tenuous place in my own childhood family dynamic, I’m coming full circle to finally have permanent reconstruction done. 

I cannot wait. 

After the second round of loss,  of my tissue expanders, I have had ongoing pain and crave relief from it. This surgery will be an ordeal – the lead nurse on my Care Team says I’ll be peeled like a banana. To me, after the long spring, except for Jon’s vacation, I’m looking forward to being heavily medicated and getting some rest.  HA

Jonathan is back in Kuwait after a wonderful two-week hiatus with us, celebrating Brett’s graduation, keeping the governor on my motor in the midst of prickly former relatives, gracing my life with smiles and silliness and sweetness after a long spring of non-stop emotional jogging. He’s been my shoulder, near and far, as I waded through Randall’s illness and assorted family nonsense this season.

Suffice it to say, after finally accepting the fact that I would never fit in the circle of my birth family, I quit.

Quit the family.

If they want to be my friends they are more than welcome, but after 42 years of trying to fit in and being called out for being different, I quit ( except for my mom and my aunts ). 

“Aunt” Donna is on the other side of that equation, as her kids have quit her for their own reasons, so we are a mother and daughter from different families who need the other for opposing reasons. My mom is still a vital part of my life, yet it doesn’t hurt to have a couple of extras.  Jonathan’s mom and I run very close in our view of things, and share the deep faith and mysterious passion for the Catholic church, as well as a deep love for Jonathan on different levels. Donna knew my dad when he was a wonderful man, once upon a time, making her the only person who also knew him like I did with whom I can talk to without  getting vitriolic when I bring him up.  Our rather large group of offspring more than make up for the pang of loss I feel separated from my own siblings, and my half-sibs help ease the sting as well.

So, here we are. Above the highest cloud layer for a few minutes as the sun casts golden rays into the little windows along the side of the jet. Once again, the past circles around me as I head into the future. The boy who amazed me with his passion for science fiction, now the love of my life, is in Kuwait, sacrificing day to day family time to being able to provide for them and for me while I recover.  I’m on my way to retrieving my figure which I sacrificed to keep my life three years ago, and spending a fortnight in and out of the hospital -- and in and out of memories of my daddy with my best childhood friend’s mom, who has known me since I was born.

This aircraft isn’t flying in a straight line from OKC to Chicago. The pilot has to keep constantly adjusting the flight path to maintain a curve so we move with the earth’s rotation and don’t overshoot our destination.

We have to keep adjusting our paths along our life routes, too, so that we get to where we are supposed to be. Turbulence may hit in the form of cancer and loss of loved ones. Some legs of the journey are full of delays and missed opportunities. Some flights get you right to where you want to go without a hitch. You have to work the whole way, though. Luggage gets heavy. Plane tickets have a price. Vacations only last so long before reality sets in and you have to get back into it before the next vacation.

If you are thankful for EVERYTHING, Everything stays in balance. Work, and vacation. Laughter, and loss. Companionship, and solitude.

It’s like a marriage, living your own life. You have to take it all as it comes, cherish the good parts and forgo the rest.

Taking all the parts as a whole and loving it all… “ I take thee, this my crazy life, to be my adventure, in sickness and in health, for better for worse, for richer for poorer.”

Amen.