Some Anniversary Present

Waiting takes up such a large portion of our time these days and as we’re sitting here anticipating the arrival of my wife’s doctor, I’m noting, again, how all of the chairs in this particular clinic are so much more comfortable than they look like they should be. Squishing my palm up and down on the seat beside me to demonstrate the soft, yet stable condition of the padded seat, I muse, “these are noticeably more comfortable than the chairs in any of the other clinics we have to visit.” Shrugging her shoulders with a short smile and nodding her head with the raising of her brow, she’s acknowledging that I’m probably right. 

My wife’s chair now travels around with her; a built-in padded black seat with a red plastic handle centred in between the foldable rolling handlebars that she needs to help her get around these days. I could help her transfer herself into one of these more comfortable chairs, but she’s choosing to stay put where she is. I’m reminded how the camera adds 10 pounds and think she could use a couple of cameras on her right now; her walker seems to add forty years to what, only months ago, appeared to be a healthy young woman in the prime of her life.

I’m watching her, sitting just a few feet away from me–wheel brakes on so she stays anchored–in the middle of this large room and in the memory of last winter that is found in the still-road salt-stained toes of her light brown Uggs boots I see the coastlines of tropical salt water beaches contrasted against the speckled sea-foam green floor tiles laid below our feet. My gaze is moving up to where she’s propped her bony elbows on top of her now bony knees to give her head a spot to rest on her hands and I wish, more than anything, that we could go back in time to those sandy beach chairs we lounged on during our vacation to The Bahamas around this same time last year. It’s hard, in this moment, to comprehend that only a couple months after we would get back from that trip, our lives would be so dramatically altered. It’s nearing the end of summer, and though it’s not cold today, the teddy bear-like sweater she’s wearing to keep her anemic-self warm—zipped right up to her chin—makes her look like a ‘Get Well Soon’ gift one might find in the shop down the hall from the Starbucks we frequent just a floor below the room we’re currently occupying. Each little frizzy brown strand of her sweater’s fabric standing out in striking definition against the whiter shades of pale surrounding us on all sides of this cold and sterile patient room. Like the top right corner of the paint chip wall at my local Home Depot, there are so many different whites enveloping us that it sometimes feels like we’re being sealed into these medical buildings with a thousand other stories waiting to be mailed out to the world.

The door opens with a soft swoosh as the tiny bristles hanging off the bottom sweep along the floor—our envelope is opening. Dr. G strides into the room in her long white lab coat, says hello to us in her mild, motherly voice accompanied by a polite nod to each of us and then quickly sits with her back to my wife, as she clicks away at the white mouse connected to the large white monitor on the otherwise bare surface of the compact white desk tucked into one of the four corners of this spacious, yet drafty and unsympathetic room. I can’t really make out what’s on the screen with the privacy shield this monitor has; I’m trying to guess what she’s looking for or at so frenetically, but all I’m recognizing is that her energy is different this morning. Her surname comes from a Sanskrit word meaning guardian or protector and I find that so fitting for her, but today she appears reserved. They both do. One of her fellows is in the room with us too. He’s not saying anything. He’s just observing from his stool like a gull landed on a buoy, bobbing there on the other side of this ocean-like floor over by the smooth concrete sink docked to the wall near the door. The sink has one of those semi-circle foot rails to activate the spraying faucet and reminds me of the sinks I used way back in grade school. His observance is distant today and I wonder if my wife’s even registered that he’s in the room. She will remember him when she’s sees him. He’s called us before and he once even sat in for Dr. G during one of our regular clinic appointments a few months back. He hasn’t yet snuck a look toward me today.

Dr. G swivels around from the screen towards her patient and as she does my wife catches her drooping head with a violent snap of her neck as I recognize that she’s almost dozed off. Looking over to the clock on the wall above the sink, I see that it’s only 10:15. Mumbling a bit, as she has come to do these days, she apologizes and tells the doctors, “it’s been a long day already, I had radiation earlier this morning.” 

“Oh good,” Dr. G says as I notice that her delicate hands are grasping her knees with a tense excitability, “I was hoping you had already been down for that. I was just trying to look up the radiation schedule in your chart with the hope that it wasn’t still scheduled for sometime this afternoon.” Her knuckles are whitening a bit as she scrunches the fabric of her trousers in her grip.

“Nope, already been,” my wife replies with heavy eyelids drooping. Her voice is weaker than it once was and it takes her so much more effort to speak than it did even a few weeks ago. She sleeps way more than she ever has before, yet she’s never quite rested. I had to wake her up extra early this morning so we could drive into the city before rush hour, get down to the second basement level of this hospital for her radiation appointment, and then come three floors up from there for today’s clinic with her medical oncologist. She can sleep on the car ride home, I’m reminding myself, as I take a deep breath and shift a bit to look outside.

Opposite Dr. G, and behind me, is the mirrored window that provides a tinted view of the shadowy alley between this hospital and the next. We’re currently situated in a south-facing room, on the west side of the street, in this building plotted at the north end of what’s known as Hospital Row. After the nurse confirmed her weight, checked her blood pressure and took her temperature, my wife and I had a few minutes to ourselves where we were able to crane our necks and look up to the 18th floor of the hospital next door. We each took a turn guessing which bank of windows were the portals into the ward she inhabited when she was admitted there after her mastectomy last month. I let my sight drop and peering down below us, I pointed out the small art gallery located in that hospital’s ground floor. I told her that I had visited it a few times when I would go down for coffees and food during that week-long stay. It’s these little games we use to try to keep ourselves occupied and maybe somewhat amused—or at least distracted—throughout all of the commuting, the waiting around, and the appointments. My wife’s been a patient at three of the hospitals within this square kilometre in the past couple of weeks and I joke with her that, including the free space, we almost have a BINGO on the city’s hospital-themed Bingo card.

Pigeons love to gather on the exterior ledges of these lower-floor windows, and as Dr. G takes a deep inhale before starting with the news she is about to share, the irony of the rock pigeon—ancestor to the once-prolific messenger pigeon—bobbing his head along to his own silent beat on the other side of this pane, is not lost on me. The beady red eyes set into the sides of his iridescent head carry a message from outside of our current stationary confinement. My wife doesn’t notice the pigeons like I do. She humours me, most of the time, but she often rolls her eyes in jest when I point out every bird I see as we drive around. She reminds me to keep my eyes on the road before I become the reason our souls take flight from our earthly bodies and soar alongside these birds I’ve become so obsessed with.

There’s slight movement in the reflection on this side of window, but as I’m adjusting my focal point from the pigeon outside to the images projected on the inside of this glass I can only see a picture of my wife’s back. The parchment paper is creasing and crackling under the pressure of my lean as I sit propped against the patient examination table, listening to the words Dr. G is saying. On the surface, her voice sounds normal enough. Her tone carries an obvious sense of practice and is naturally comforting, yet my brain is processing each word with a sort of lag that is messing with my comprehension. I’m transfixed on my wife’s reflection, her head tilting back and causing her face to point up towards the buzzing lights behind their textured plastic covers set into the dropped ceiling. I still can’t see her face in the reflection, but I know it well and in my mind’s eye, I can see her face. At first, she’s got a searching look—a placeholder of sorts—as she decides what to reveal. So much of what she expresses outwardly is careful and calculated, always wanting to make sure others feel safe, and okay, and comfortable. She is carrying subtle looks of both worry and fear in her brow and around her cracked lips, but under the weight of all these words she’s taking in, there glimmers a sad twinkle of relief in her exhausted eyes. Maybe it’s a twinkle of relief with a sprinkle of forgiveness that is trying to broadcast a sense of understanding and appreciation to her doctors—despite everything—as she brings her head back forward and looks them in the eyes to show she’s comprehending it all. She apologizes to them with her eyes in between her slow blinks while she’s trying to take deep breaths and process what’s been shared. She doesn’t look back at me yet, but I can tell that my wife isn’t truly continuing to hear all of what is being said now as Dr. G carries on for a little while about the consultations she’s had with everyone she knows in this field; as she now tries to portray to us how sorry she is.

My wife’s breaths shorten when the doctor mentions our son. Dr. G says that we should spend the next couple of months making as many good memories with him as we can and the few muscles my wife has left in her already-withered body start tensing up. She begins shivering faintly. I snap out of my trance, stand from my seat and I'm going to her. I hold her head tightly, but gently, against my torso as my brain is flooding with a chaotic rush of thoughts: anger, and sadness, and defeat. I want to just break it all down and move anything in my way so I can try to get back all that is currently slipping through my hands. I am trying to hold her up, but my sails have lost their wind and my small back-up engine doesn't seem to be turning over. I search for the life raft, but I can't see anything to grab onto. The darkness that would come from nothingness seems less troubling than the storm we’re in and yet I know I need to be strong for us to weather this as best we can. I don’t want to be strong anymore, but I look down at her head and take my inspiration from her as my thoughts begin switching to how admirably she’s handled all of this. I’m impressed, once again, how throughout all of this, she has been the definition of resilience; she is grace, too; she has taken everything on with a bravery that I, myself, could probably never muster. I think about how I wish I could switch places with her—so as to take away all of her pain—but at the same time, wouldn’t wish my helplessness on anyone. Definitely not on her, and as I close my eyes again to bury my face on her head, I’m overwhelmed with a sense of gladness that she’ll never have to experience anything like this from my current position.

I’m still holding my wife against me and stroking the soft baby hairs growing back on her recently-bald head, as she finally looks up at me and permits herself to cry. The tears that are trickling down her cheeks catch a flicker of intrusive fluorescent light from the hallway as a nurse abruptly pops her head in—to what I suppose she must think is an empty room—before then pulling straight back out again in a swift, almost-silent motion and an apologetic look of uneasiness present in the eyes behind her face mask. Tears are stumbling across the overly-defined bones below my wife’s eyes and seem to pool in the dark sunken spaces that take up so much of her face now. These collective tears seem to be soaking through the envelope-like room we occupy and a falling feeling comes over me again: we’re together, but we’re together in a paper boat riding the roughness of this tempest that will surely tear the seams of our boat apart at the height of the next breaking wave.

My waking nightmare is interrupted as Dr. G's adjusting her weight around on the green rolling stool she’s been perched on in front of her desk and tries, one final time, to comfort us as best one can in this situation. I can’t help thinking how hard this must be for a doctor. She’s trying to let us know what we can expect going forward—what the next few days and weeks might look like. We’re assured that everyone’s going to be focussing on my wife’s comfort. She continues on to confirm to us that there are teams of doctors and nurses who specialize in making sure patients like my wife can be as comfortable and strong and pain free as possible. She tells us that she’ll personally be regularly in touch with us as well. Her fellow reminds her about the wall filled with brochures and pamphlets in the waiting area. I’ve seen those white sheets before and I know there’s written guidance on how to handle just about anything, so we’re graciously nodding in agreement with her fellow as he’s suggesting we can stop by there on our way back out through the waiting room. Dr. G urges us to take as much time as we need as her and her colleague are rising simultaneously to give us some space. My wife’s gaze longingly follows the doctors as they’re leaving the room in tandem, closing the door behind them to seal us back in. She turns her head back up towards me from under my left arm still wrapped around her shoulders and looking up into my welling eyes she says, “Some anniversary present, huh?"

*  *  *

A nurse I don’t recognize comes into the room, pulls on the end of the crepe paper crinkled atop the examination table that I didn’t even get to use today and wipes the memory of me from this hospital room with one toss as she disposes of the protective paper in the trash bin. I recognize how slow we move these days, as I’m shuffling my way out onto the waxed hallway tiles that are leading us toward the columns of elevators centred in this familiar hospital. He doesn’t stop for any of the brochures they mentioned, we just keep shuffling. Glancing towards the lounge area just behind the elevators, I long for a sound from the muted grand piano that’s currently just watching over all the people who are sitting around waiting. Some appear to be here with their spouse, or maybe a friend; their son or their daughter; their mother or their father or possibly their aunt; some are alone. I don’t like to imagine what going through this alone would be like. All the time we’ve spent together over the last 9 months—all the appointments and scans, the chemotherapy and radiation, the surgery and hospital stays, the home care and recovery—has been the most dedicated time we have ever spent together. It has not been fun, but it hasn’t been all bad, either. It is definitely not the way I would have wished to spend more time together with him, but we’ve grown closer, everyday, since the diagnosis and for that I find myself grateful. 

The glass-walled elevator dings as the arrow on the down button—backlit in red—goes out and the doors open. Though he offers to help me in, I huff in disagreement as I’m using all of my strength to hop the wheels of my walker over the threshold. My husband holds the Door Open button for me for as long as I need without it feeling like he’s rushing me. This must be what it feels like to be 75, I’m thinking as I catch my breath and lean against the back wall of the elevator.

“Your floor, madam?” he asks me with a theatrical voice and his finger dramatically at the ready to press another button. I just shake my head gently and give him a half-hearted smile inferring that it’s time to just get going home. I look down at my watch to figure we’ll be home by lunchtime. It looks like I won’t be closing my exercise ring today, but I haven’t actually closed my ring in a long time. I’m looking forward to settling into my spot on the couch or in my chair and to a couple hours of sleep before our son comes home from school. He just started Second Grade a couple weeks ago and I get a warm feeling thinking about how much I love how much he loves going to school; reading and learning; his teachers and his friends.

On the ground level, he’s once again trying to steady me as I walk as if I don’t have rolling support literally at my fingertips. He means well, and I know he can’t help himself, but I’m feeling beat up and worn out enough already. I’m tired but determined, today. I’m still here, for now, and with a sense of conviction, I let him know to go on ahead, telling him I’ll wait for him in here, as I’m scouting out my own spot by the wall of windows on the west side of the building. We only ever use this entrance to the hospital. It’s the most convenient to get us to and from the garage that we have a parking pass for on the other side of this quiet back street. Though it’s a fairly nice day outside and I know I’d be warmer out there than in this air-conditioned lobby, I’m choosing to wait inside. I know that the kind man with the black hat and reflective vest who is always settled on his tall stool between the two revolving doors will come and help me get outside when my husband pulls our car into the semi-circle driveway. I only just bought our car earlier this year. It was my suburban mom car—the white SUV that made me feel like I made it—but I only got to drive it seven or eight times before it just wasn’t feasible anymore.

I’m watching an older lady get out of the taxi and I begin wondering why she’s here, as I often do with people I see at these hospitals. She looks great, and if that’s a wig, she’s picked out a perfectly suited one for the shape of her face. Maybe it’s a routine check-up that she’s here for: some scans and bloodwork to make sure she’s still cancer-free. Maybe she’s coming to sit with a friend or a family member while they get their infusion so they’re not alone for the few hours they’re hooked up to the bags. I can’t help noticing the sun sparkle through the diamond on her left hand and look down to my bony and bare fingers. My wedding rings don’t fit anymore, but I start remembering back to this day in 2015. Today, it’s been eight years since we stood in front of our friends and our family by that old window overlooking Queen Street. Glancing to my watch again I realize it’s probably almost the exact time of day we would have been saying our vows as the catering company was setting up the taco bar just outside the doors of the Conversation Room for the post-ceremony lunch. It’s been eight years since we took each others hands, looked into each others eyes, and promised to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish… 

“Knock, knock,” the door guy says to me as he gently taps his knuckles on the inside of the window in front of me, “your husband’s just pulled up. I’ll help you out to the car.”

On our way home now, we’re sitting in a palpable silence as our car—trapped like a Tetris piece amongst the mid-day traffic we’re stuck in near the art gallery—is figuring its map out in order to provide him the most efficient route back down to the expressway. The stereo is off this morning even though we normally always have music playing. Music’s one of the first things we bonded over when we began hanging out and I often find myself reminiscing back to all the times we would come in and out of the city for coffee, and for record shopping, and for concerts that our friends were playing at all these small venues we keep passing downtown. Now we only venture down here for my appointments. We’re approaching the onramp and spotting my sister’s condo building in the crowded bouquet of towers in the village off in the distance north of the train tracks, I get the urge to give her a call. My sister was the first call we made that early morning in late December when we sat in the local ER parking lot, terrified after we were told some more tests, and some more procedures, and some more scans would now need to be scheduled to help determine pathology. They told me that once that pathology came back, next steps would be established, but I'm guessing we’ve reached the end of those next steps and this staircase can go no higher. I know that beyond a want, I do need to call my sister, and then the rest of my family, and eventually my friends, but breaking the present silence we’ve been sitting in, I admit to my husband, and to myself, that I don’t even know what to say to anyone; how or where do I start a phone call with any of them about all this? I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s all so overwhelming and I’m just so god damn tired.

“I don’t feel like talking about too much right now, logistics and details can all get worked out later on, because right now I don’t have the words and I’m so exhausted,” I say to my husband, “but I do need one more vow from you: I appreciate that you’ve held it all down for me and for all of us so far, but you need to promise me you won’t shut down now. I don’t know what we’re going to do, or what it’s going to be like, but I know what your instincts will be and I know we’re going to need you now more than ever. Your son needs and deserves an emotionally available parent to help him through it all and for that to happen, you need to accept and know that you deserve love and connections too. Please don’t shut everyone else out when I can’t be that for you anymore.”

He’s nodding in agreement as his blue eyes continue welling up past the capacity of his eyelids and I realize he’s pointing, with a subtle movement of his head and a directional glance, to a pair of Mourning doves sitting together on the concrete half-wall running beside us as we’re descending the onramp and merging into the westbound traffic. He’s wiping away the tears from his face with the back of his hand while offering me a reassuring smile and I know the doves, like all of the other birds he sees, bring him a sense of peace and comfort that he’s always on the lookout for. I recognize that the hardest conversation is going to come after the wheels on that long yellow bus stop going round and round and drop our son off at the end of our street this afternoon. He’ll bounce down the stairs onto the boulevard, tossing his backpack at his dad, and want to race him to our front door. I don’t think I’ll ever know what to say to him. It could never be enough.

When we get home from the city, switching from my fleece-lined boots to my fleeced-lined slippers, and reaching for my electric heating pad, I ask my husband to wake me up before he leaves to go to the bus stop. I’m starting to drift off as I recline in my chair, but notice that he’s put on a Milk Carton Kids record and can hear him puttering away in the kitchen.

“I’m heading out to the bus stop,” I hear him tell me as I’m waking to the remnants of a soft kiss he’s just placed on my forehead. Lying there in silence, my brain is virtually thoughtless and for those few moments, I'm feeling no pain. After a couple of minutes pass, the white storm door is swinging open with a crash, and panting from the race, his little mouth, set between his little flushed cheeks, is calling out, “Mom, I’m home,” in his best whisper-yell in case I happen to be asleep.

Using the lever in my right hand to fold myself up from the reclined position of this new Lay-Z-Boy my husband recently brought home for me, I open my resting eyes to behold our sweaty-haired little kid standing in front of me. I can’t do anything but smile when I see him, “Welcome home my sweet boy, tell me all about your day.”

Written by: Josh Veit - 2024