SurvivorSHIP: Christmas & The Nose Hair

It was just before Christmas… My mother who had been battling cancer for years was just admitting to hospital, again. Oh YAY! What a fabulous new holiday tradition this was turning out to be.

In mom’s illness and absences my father had become completely unaware of himself. He had been holding fast to keep the family together, look after my mother, all the while running a fledgling but very busy contracting business born out of the recession in 93. I don’t think he stopped to look at himself in the mirror - figuratively and literally speaking. He is very generous at the cost of his own needs.

In this case my sister and I had become alarmed at the rate and magnitude of the nose hair growing out of dad’s nose. Honestly how can he not feel that? My sister and I were both too chicken to bring his grooming to his attention and so while we were alone with mom in her hospital room we decided to ask her to have a talk with dad about his nose hair. If something was not done soon – he would surely trip over them whilst walking up the stairs and we could not afford to have both parents in the hospital.

Mom laughed at our request and we thought she promised us not to say that she was the messenger speaking on behalf of two grown daughters. How ignorant on our part. Neither my sister nor I knew the code of the married couple – which lives to share such secrets.

Mom was scheduled to have a few rounds of her annual Christmas chemo and was also about to pop her radiation therapy cherry. What had begun as breast cancer had metastasized into bone cancer and my poor mother was bravely preparing to have her spine radiated. From her hospital bed she showed us the casts the radiologist had made to cover the areas not undergoing the radiation. And she showed us all the pen mark ups they had drawn all over her back and legs. Someone had brought her a package of cartoony thought-bubble stickers with funny and sarcastic captions printed on them used to stick on photos. She made a game of sticking them on her skin. Hiding them along the highway of green sharpie pen mark-ups to give the nursing staff a chuckle as they readied her for her therapies. Typical of my mother to think of how someone else might feel in her situation. What a card. Her mood was optimistic and so were we. We saw her off to this treatment and headed back to our respective daily activities. Neither Sue nor I thought about the nose hair conversation again as suddenly it seemed there were greater things to worry about.

After completing my last university midterm I headed out to do some Christmas shopping. But my heart was not in it. I was getting over heated in my down coat while wondering around the mall aimlessly looking for wonderful gifts to buy and I was growing increasingly impatient with the herds of people pushing and shoving me out of the way. I wondered if I was as invisible as I felt in that moment. I wondered if any of the hurried passersby took a moment to really look at me if they could see the swirl of sadness I was carrying around. If they looked all the way into my being would they see the rock lodged in my chest and the vice grip holding me where my head meets my neck? I wondered what went on in their homes and if they too walked around carrying so much inside. And if they did, how is it that they muster the strength to push on. My thoughts trail off to stories I have read about people who can lift cars off people at accident scenes and other super human acts of strength they are honoured, as heroes and I know that somehow we are built to bring on the super powers in the face of disaster and despair. And while there are no hero biscuits for the family afflicted on the daily with cancer there is survivorship.

Absently, I wondered over to the Elephant and Castle bar and restaurant and sat down to order a cold beer. I don’t think I had been in this bar since it was a favorite drinking whole for the under-aged back in high school. Ironically, I am carded when I place my order. All around me the bar is filled with jovial office party patrons getting sloshed on the company dollar all in the spirit of Christmas.

***

At noon the following day I am still lounging around the house in my PJ’s delighted in the fact that I didn’t have to jet out of the house to sit through a two hour lecture which is a relief after cramming for exams. I don’t have to go to school for the next month – which means I get to sleep in a little more often and pick up a few extra shifts at work over the break to pay for my next semester’s tuition. My sister and I are casually chatting while she feeds her son Aaron lunch.

Our neighbours are always very good to us whenever mom heads off to the hospital – they come over bearing gifts of casseroles and salads and buns. Anything they can do to help us out. Today Sue and I watch as baby Aaron chews forever on a piece of beef stroganoff.

Michelle: Did you make that I ask?
Sue: No one of the neighbours dropped it off for our dinner - I thought since it was still warm I would feed it to Aaron.

Aaron still chewing the same bite sighs, puts his elbow on the table, his tiny hand under his chin to prop up his head and continues to chew. Sue and I start laughing at him.

Sue: He must be hungry – I would have spit that out by now! What’s the stroganoff made of shoe leather?

The front door opens and Dad comes through the door. He takes of his knock off beaver fur hat –the kind with the ear-flaps that tie over the top. I visualize a reveal of his nose hair tied neatly in a bow at the top of his head. He pulls off his galoshes, hangs his coat and comes into the kitchen.

Dad: Well helloo there.

He says to us then goes straight for the grandbaby to give him a squeeze.

Sue & Michelle: Hiya Pop we say. You are home for lunch?

Dad: I guess – what are we having?

Sue: Stroganoff or sandwiches. Take your pick.

Dad: I’ll just have a sandwich.

Silence. We all stare at Aaron – he is still chewing.

Michelle: Um Sue – maybe you should fish that meat out of his mouth and just feed him the gravy and the noodles?

Dad: Your mother has asked not to have any company up to see her in the hospital. It would be helpful to me if you could share this information.

Sue: Ohkay?

Michelle: No one as in friends and neighbours or no one as in her sister and brother or what?

Dad: No. No one. She’ll tell you when she wants to see you. She just wants to be alone right now.

Michelle: But why? What happened?

Dad: The radiation severed her spinal column. She is paralyzed from the waste down. She can’t walk. She can’t feel if she has to go to the bathroom. She does not want to be embarrassed in front of anyone if she has an accident. NO VISITORS PERIOD.

A giant red boxing glove on a mechanical arm flies out of nowhere and punches me square in the stomach. Sue leaves the room. Aaron continues chewing.

***

It had been a good 4 or 5 days of “No visitors” when I received a call from Dad. He called to tell me a friend of mine who’s grandfather was in the same hospital as mom had popped in to visit her.

Michelle: What? I don’t know what to say dad. I told her explicitly and I was very clear that under no condition was she to go anywhere near mom’s room. I told her I was not even allowed to go into see mom. I’m so sorry.

Dad: Don’t let it happen again.

Fuming. I was actually fuming. How disrespectful to me and my family – did my so called friend think my mother was some side show freak she needed have a look at? Just so she could get the inside scoop so she could run around to tell all the other friends how tragic the whole situation was? This was my mother’s fragile existence and an emotional blow to our whole family. This was not small town telephone gossip material this was our lives! What friend does that? Too angry to cry I feel my chest rock turn into a fireball my head turns red, I begin to get overheated and then I find I cannot breathe at all. It is possible to drown on dry land I think.

***

A few short days before Christmas – and a good week after the no visitor ban was lifted I popped into see my mother. She was sitting propped up in her bed. She had been given a shower that morning, my sister who was in hairdressing school had come in to cut mom’s hair earlier in the day. Mom was looking more herself than I had seen her look in a long while. I saddled up beside her gave her a kiss and then pulled out my toiletry case. We had a weekly ritual of manicures and pedicures. My mother ever the lady enjoyed to have her nails looking good, especially in the hospital. She always said – no matter how beautiful or expensive your outfit if your nails are chipped and unkempt you will look trashy. Nothing dressed up backless hospital blues and catheters like a coat of Chanel Ruby Red on a lady’s fingers and toes. Classy.

Mom: Look!
She says pointing up to the wall at the foot of her bed. I look up wondering how I could not have noticed the wall filled with crazy looking construction paper rein deer.

Mom: Louise was in and she brought all this paper and glue and tape. You have to trace your hands for the antlers and then make a deer to hang on the wall. Everyone in the last two days has made one when they came into visit!

Leave it to Louise my mother’s longtime and likely best ever girlfriend to come up with an idea like this. Louise was a very skilled artisan. She was a weaver and had introduced me to the world of sewing, spending afternoons with us kids making crafts and dolls and Ukranian Easter eggs at her kitchen table. Her patience was endless and I loved her for it.

Mom: Before we do nails you have to make a deer.

I gotta hand it to Louise it was a clever way to occupy a visit, create a jolly mural and ease the discomfort of seeing my mother in such bad shape. My mother obviously derived so much pleasure from seeing all the deer made of “helping hands in healing.”

I make a deer, hang it on the wall, study the other hands to see who had made each one. It was uncanny how each deer actually resembles the person who made it. Then we go about discussing Christmas plans while we get down to the business of painting nails.

Mom: I won’t be home for Christmas this year and I haven’t even done my shopping for you girls. Your Aunt Dianne has offered to do some so why don’t you tell me what you would like?

Michelle: Nothing mom. I just want you to feel better and come home.

I barely get this out. I am concentrating on painting her nails but I can’t see through the blurr of tears in my eyes. Be brave, be brave, be brave, I say over and over in my head. The orderly comes in with the dinner tray. Hospital food never looked so good.

***


Christmas day my dad was up early working away in the kitchen. There had been no sign of Santa this year. Not a big one – seeing as we were all adults and Aaron at 15 months was still too small to notice. Dad was on a mission to get the bird into the oven and the rest of the meal going so we could bring Christmas dinner and Christmas cheer to mom’s hospital room.

Dad, Sue and I quietly went about getting everything ready, we made the effort to get all dressed up, Sue dug out Mom’s red weekender wear jacket she had even pinned the Rudolf pin to it’s lapel –just like mom always does. She dressed Aaron in a cute fleece tartan outfit with a matching tam, I grabbed a few old photo albums depicting Christmases past and the Christmas stockings while Dad packaged up dinner with plates and silver wear, napkins –the whole nine yards and off we went to have our Christmas with mom.

Totally normal right. Well we all silently pretended it was. We entered mom’s room with an air of what I can only look back now as fake holiday cheer. Mom was so very happy to see us. She slipped her jacket on over only one arm because the IV was in the way, we laughed and opened presents, leafed through the photo albums while dad and mom told us stories about how late they had stayed up wrapping gifts and how early I had woken them up every year.

It’s then that I look up at the wall of rein deer. They were there in my periferal vision the whole time but having seen them a handful of times already upon this visit I had glanced at the wall without paying much attention to it. It’s then that my mother asks me if I have seen the rein deer Dad made. Sue and I scrutinize the wall further until Sue shouts, “OHMIGAWD LOOK!”

There on the wall is a reindeer sporting eye glasses just like my father’s. But that was not the alarming or most significant thing about this deer. This deer had NOSE HAIR! The construction paper had been cut into thin strips dragged over the sharp side of the scissors to make neat curls and were protruding from Daddy deer’s nose! As if!!

Michelle & Sue: Mom you said you wouldn’t tell!

Mom: I did no such thing. Your Father and I tell each other everything.

Dad: Besides she’s heavily medicated – stuff just comes out. You hould hear what else she has told me!

Mom to Dad: You’re bad! – She swats his arm.

Dad is laughing, while reaching in his pocket to retrieve a Kleenex – he is laughing so hard his nose is beginning to run.

Dad: The funniest thing girls, is that I trimmed my nose hair two weeks ago and neither of you noticed.

He was right.