In the weeks just after Frank’s diagnosis in 2009, it
suddenly seemed that everyone had cancer or knew someone who did. Funny how
when something touches your life, it suddenly becomes visible in the lives
around you. Even now I’ll be out at the store or on the street and I recognize
chemo pallor or signs of liver disease in a stranger; an odd sort of connection
forms and I find myself hoping they have all the help they need.
What Frank had – carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP),
metastasized to the liver – is both uncommon and deadly. “Unknown primary” means the original source of
the cancer can’t be found, and it applies to 2 - 5% of cancer diagnoses. Since
current cancer treatment is based on knowing the cell type that first became
malignant, treatment options are much less effective. Fewer than 25% of all CUP
patients are still living one year after diagnosis and the median survival rate
for patients with liver involvement is only 2 -3 months.
We took a hell of a win on him living for nearly two years.
Not long enough by far – but long enough to get to paradise in Florida and give
him more than a year of good life here despite the ongoing chemo.
We reveled in the simplicity of being alive and together. I heard
a song once about “Live Like You Were Dying” and I can tell you that Frank didn’t
give a wet slap about going sky diving or Rocky Mountain climbing and his
bucket list didn’t include climbing mountains in Tibet or romancing beautiful
young strangers, if you’ve seen that movie.
Some of our best moments were sitting on the couch laughing
at America’s Funniest Videos or Bugs Bunny. Him taking a walk in the pouring
rain on a warm December day, under a very big umbrella. Joking about climbing
over the back fence to throttle the neighbor’s squawking parrot. Pruning our citrus
trees and savoring the fruit. Listening to him practice Mozart’s clarinet
concerto in A (K.622), getting his chops back after too long a break. Relaxing
on the porch on a lovely evening, listening to the spring peepers while the
sunset faded down to deep, deep blue.
Frank was constantly delighted by the flora and fauna here –
egrets strolling through the front yard, oranges and grapefruit for free, a
small startled snake outside our door, rain lilies that sprang up overnight, and
the endlessly active lizards on the window screens, being stalked by the cat. One
fine May day he rushed in for the camera, exclaiming about the most amazing
purple tree. It was a jacaranda in full bloom, which of course we’d never seen
up north. The photo he took that day is the one on this page, and I never see a
jacaranda tree in bloom without thinking of him and his charming capability to
get excited about little things.
There’s a predictable pace to the spring blooming season
here. The azaleas are first, erupting in hot pink explosions all over town. Then
everything bursts into life, with jacaranda coming for a few weeks towards the
end. When the crepe myrtle flowers next,
you know that summer’s heat is just around the corner. Jacaranda season is
fragile perfection balanced on an edge, transient and precious.
So when I decided to start a blog, I chose The Jacaranda
Season for the title. It’s my symbol of the universal in the personal, and the
personal in the universal. Physical death is universal and extremely personal
when it comes close. But so is life, and the fact of a certain end should not
lead to an uncertain, bitter, or resigned life.
While he was dying we both learned so much about how to
truly live:
Stop postponing what you really
want to do.
Don’t miss a chance to make someone
you care about feel happy or loved.
Waste no energy on the stupid stuff
or on mean people – poor things, they have to live with themselves anyway and
surely that is punishment enough.
Only you can say what you want to
do and when you want to quit.
Do the most important things and
let go of the rest.
Treasure the little moments – they are
what life is made of.
Be kind to yourself.
Let others help.
It will all be alright in the end.
If it isn’t alright, it isn’t the end.
6/29/2013
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