Yesterday

I got Skyped yesterday by a friend.. who called to let me know she had Cancer..

I thought.. OMG! And smiled foolishly into the computer. What do you say? What can you do to make it Ok?

Not a lot I’m afraid.

Nothing came to my mind. A big blank… and I thought “she looks Ok. Maybe it’s a mistake.”

But I knew it wasn’t

“They do surgery on Thursday, they’ll know more then.”

And I imagined her in bed at the hospital: and remembered when my mother-in-law was in the hospital in Cranbrook with a broken arm. The room was green and dingy, with just a little window looking across at another hospital wing. And her feet were sticking out of the blankets as they were always too hot.. and they were dirty.. and her nails were gnarled and gross.

“Get a pedicure before you go in.” I blurted.

“Well you’re the first person to give us that piece of advice.”

I never had cancer. I have no advice.

She explained about the cancer, how they found it and what the doctors would do. She explained how they caught it early, she had gone in to get checked, on the advice of her sister.

Sister. This was the sister she wasn’t talking to a few years back. Now she is a key player in saving her life. That is what being a sister is. Sisters are a good thing: a great thing. I adore my sisters. They are there for me now, as I deal with the ‘stuff’ that surrounds getting older.

In my 20’s and 30’s, I adored my friends. They were there for me when I was dealing with all the ‘stuff’ that surrounds raising kids, dealing with husbands and being a woman in the prime of her life.

And today, oceans apart, we still manage to get together: to touch base, see one another, remember and laugh. We are there for each other as we deal with all the ‘stuff’ that surrounds growing older, becoming grandmothers, dealing with jobs and being women in the prime of our lives.

I wanted to make it better.. but what can you say? “It’ll be ok?” I have no idea. That is up to the Doctors ..and God.

“Don’t worry about it?”.. How can she NOT worry?

“Get you’re hair done?”.. I had already mentioned the pedicure.. she’d think she looks like crap and I was just rattling on because I had nothing better to say.. and I didn’t have a lot to say. I am stunned. I feel vulnerable: helpless.

“I’ll come up if you need me.”

It’s all I could think of to say that was true..

Thursday.