We are resting after Angela's second radiation treatment today. We can recommend Proust at times like these. Our good friends from Montreal left Angela with an ipod complete with Proust on audio book format. Such a thoughtful gift! She finds it very soothing, and even now wears a pleasant smile as she listens to it. I will return to my hotel at night much easier knowing she is in the best of company.
I had my own proustian moment while waiting for Angela in the radiation department. I was washed over by childhood memories that related to military chapels. I realized that the department shared such resemblances to the chapels my family attended on military stations over the years. Both somehow occupy the same space, not quite military, not quite church, but somewhere in between. Indeed, I have visited a real church very recently, a moment of true suffering, as I found myself at once comforted by and horrified by the idea that this could one day be the only place left for communion with my Angela. It is not lost on me that it is no small thing to pray, and so I am inspired by the many of those among us who have been trying.
Some good news today is that Angela's cancer is not quite multiple myeloma. At the same time, however, it is not quite not multiple myeloma. What we understand from the tests is that there is no evidence as yet of cancer anywhere but in the one vertebra, but this now solitary tumor is sending chemical messages out for other bones to join it. Because we cannot be certain that other bones have not as yet answered this call, the medical oncologists will be following closely with regular tests and there is a likelihood that chemotherapy will be part of treatment, probably after radiation.
We choose to take this news as good. We choose to believe that our prayers are working. I am peeved, however, with Lars von Trier who has been too happy to remind us, in his show The Kingdom, that "We must take the good...with the evil."
Let's, for now, stick with proust, my friends, rather than the Dane. And let's keep in touch.
P.S. I have adjusted the settings on the site to make it easier for anyone to comment. I'm sorry that some of you have been blocked. Credit to samenessless who in his sleepnessless does indeed seem to be posting at a very early hour, and many thanks from >a< to you.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteColin, thanks for staying in touch and putting words on what is so difficult to imagine
ReplyDeletewarm hugs to you both
love
adina
Thanks Colin for the updated news. Warm hugs to both of you.
ReplyDeleteDanièle
Dear Colin, you are right. Let's stick with Proust tonight and with the good ones. I think that the the fact that the cancer is not quite multiple Myeloma" is a good sign. We can't neglect this good sign.
ReplyDeleteI was very happy to see Angela this week end. Everything seemed like a small celebration.
Have a good night, Colin
Catherine
Permit me but a Danish moment, for your quote from LVT reminds me of a time shared with Uncle Willie wherein he stated “guess ya gotta take de good wit de bad b’y.” I don’t remember context, just the look on his face and I suppose I believed him because I remembered. Maybe he used to read von Trier but more likely he had spent some time taking the good with the bad.
ReplyDeleteThank-you for blogging bro. As always, you do the difficult well! We hold you and Angela deep in our anxious hearts; hoping, wondering, praying. We wish you peace on your journey.
Ah, Proust… the inevitable ricochets from the pain of remembering. For indeed since when has nostalgia become a stranger to pain? Is there any fairness in the fact that even remembering happy moments replaces joy with sorrow?
ReplyDeleteMaybe we are wired to forget, but then again with the caveat that we should idealize or at least draw some wisdom from that which we call memory. But can we? With so many permutations of WHAT IFs available to our mind, the exercise of nostalgia is deidealized and punishes us toward nuances of regret. In the crepuscular sorrow we are tempted to look again at the triggers of badly stored memories with an unnatural and subjective disdain as if we have to listen to the precepts of a religion that again reminds us to stick to the faith and not to search for other meanings. And yet we cannot resist committing the sacrilege of the revisiting, when faith is put to rest for a moment.
Why is it that we don’t pray for the past? Why is it that the children’s fondness for time travelling allows for that? Some of us play the five-minute game of shamanic powers to tell them that indeed the story could end differently. I’m guilty of having committed that sacrilege with Menna. Maybe I wanted to make him believe that the past could be changed through the doings of the present. Is it hybris to daringly attempt to change the past? What happened to free will? If Zoroaster convinced the Hebrews and Saul of Tarsus that God is a teaser but not a malicious one, why don’t we accept in our current spirituality the fact that there are so many versions of the past? Even if the end perhaps will be the same…
Now that it’s raining, we have gathered at the temple and are given time to reflect about versions. We could temporarily play with the versions of our past instead of sorting them out. Rashōmonic realities make us play various protagonists in our own stories. With both empathy and disgust we search for that moment of catharsis when we can finally let go of the truth for a while. What is the truth? The one that we accept may explain the current reality but not the one of the future. So then, we have nothing to cling on but THAT which we oppose to evil. Doing the good heals us and provides us with one acceptable reality in the becoming.
May we all share some of that goodness left in ourselves. It is the only way to change the versions of our past and thus the way the story will end with the desired meaning.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletethanks Colin for the words..the update too. I've never been much of a church person except for marriages and that other thing. But I did come across an old pocket bible my grandmother gave me, it was in an old box of things and was long forgotten by me...interesting I forgot about it because it still held the gentle curve of my left chest. I carried it with me while I was in the war..wrapped in plastic for protection. I don't know what else I may have carried around for a year and took such good care of. I guess, whether I would like to admit it or not that I do believe in an energy that seems to order things..so now at my age I mostly try and let it do its ordering except that is where I might have some power to influence... but then maybe I have no power... However, I have caught myself praying for you, Angela, Me, and all of us. We love you Stela and Jerry
ReplyDelete