June 14, the touch of friendship

I am trying to understand what has changed around me while so many things have changed within. I have often, particularly during those long winter nights, considered the friendships which are alive and still tie me to so many people I love; and the withered friendships, which have little by little dried out and sometimes simply died. To which, to my enchantment, I must add those friendships which were hibernating but have come to new life over the last couple of years.

With those close to me, with whom I speak often about such matters, I exchange regretful thoughts about the lost bonds. Most everybody suffers, usually in secret, the loss of a friend who has stopped calling, or is too busy and has little time to spare, either because of work or family obligations. I have myself been there. For years, because of work, I did neglect those who did not belong to the same sphere. Meanwhile, I admired people who knew how to nourish friendships other than the working relationship with which they are often confused.

My mother had eight siblings, six sisters and two brothers. Back home, she had few friends, and thought she could only have few, given the close bond to her sisters. Once we came to Canada, she made friends, of very different ages and occupations, both women and men. She had the gift of receiving people and giving them the attention they needed, the love they did not find elsewhere. She was sought after to the point of never feeling lonely. She would have been appalled to know that I have chosen to live in the country. In solitude, that is. The means of communication we have now, including this blog, were not available in her day. But more importantly, she was not a person of words, but of touch. Of smile. And kiss. All that cannot happen on the keyboard, no matter how hard we try.

I am maybe beginning to answer the implicit opening question of this note. It is certainly possible to keep friends by corresponding with them, and what a lovely thing it is, when that happens. But friendship without touch, what kind is it?

I will go so far as to say that it has been the friendships where touch was not possible which have died first.

I know it is one of my favorite topics, that of the feeling of well being imparted by those who lay their hands on us. A few professions, less and less frequent, allow for that still. Definitely not the medical profession any longer, regardless of the lost benefits of such contact. But nowadays we have gone so far as to refrain from shaking hands for fear of contagion, and how sad it is to have this permanent, never breached distance between people who never find out what it feels like, to hold the hand of another, or to kiss another's cheek. An uncle of mine used to tell the story of my mother's younger years, when she was still childless. She used to stop strangers, women with children in their arms, on the street, and kiss their children. Stop them in order to give the stranger child a kiss. Considering how lovely she was, I am sure nobody minded, except to say that she obviously needed her own to hold and caress. But can you imagine that kind of a scene today? Here and now? The least you would expect is outrage and accusations of physical abuse, if not mental disturbance.

Maybe this is why nobody knows how to hold and kiss those who are not directly, that is legally, entitled to such treatment. And yes, I did have, in my time, friends whom I held and kissed in spite of themselves, and yes, because it was against their habit or wish, I believe I did end up loosing them.

I do not mean to say that this is why those friendships withered. Not at all. I am sure that graver, more important reasons (if such a thing exists) lead to it. But I dare say that I could have predicted that severance, had I cared to, in the days when all was still well. They say you cannot force a person to love you. Maybe the same is true of people's tolerance for affectionate gestures.

There is, of course, touch without affection.

We had to go to Kingston again the other day, for a visit with the hematologist.

The day was glorious. We trust our heads in the fresh, windy sun, happy to finally meet with a good day while in that lakeshore town. Colin was taking one of his days off, those reserved for doctors' appointments. We had found out the address of a place which offers a few varieties of vegetarian and vegan burgers. Imagine! Not one, but a few kinds to choose from! We were impressed and promised to return.

It is odd to utter these words when taking leave of any doctor, but particularly of an oncologist: see you soon. Or worse: hope to see you soon. One would rather say: farewell. There is one oncologist, the radiologist, whom I like to see often. The hematologist, much less.

That is maybe why we had not seen him in a year and a half. He was gruff when entering the room, for of course something had gone wrong and we had fallen by the side-road of the system. This is a very competent researcher, who does transplants, the last and latest in myeloma treatment options. I still hope I will not have to belong to his group of research subjects. Yet of course I very well might.

He informed us we were there to ascertain whether myeloma had advanced, spread elsewhere. Of course we knew why we were there, but that matters little. To reaffirm that sorry reason was necessary, just in case any trace of the earlier well being remained with us. A lot of blood had been drawn of my arm just before the visit, but of course he had no results to look at, so he looked at one of the last reports in the chart, and for a while seemed to fall in a trance. As if an enormous problem had taken hold of him and he could not even breathe under its spell. As if speechless.

I watched him very closely, and so did Colin. Later Colin would say that he had probably drawn a blank. It happens. Yet we all came somewhat diminished from that spell, quite the opposite of an angel's passing. Imagine one of those powerful silences before a revelation. In this case, we were left with apprehension and a sense of the meaninglessness of it all.

Do you want to see me in three weeks or three months? You guessed, I chose the three months. If things are indeed found to be as we hope, if the myeloma has not multiplied, these tests will hopefully be enough to keep us away from him until september.

He recommended another full body X-ray, or bone scan. The technician was a very young Asian man, of mild manner and barely perceptible smile. He had me placed for the twelve views with most care, just like in the old days, when you went for that important, one in a decade memento of your life stages. When the photographer took great pains to have you look your best. Look as if in the direction of a desirable object lost in the distance, or as if thoughtful; press your shoulders back; incline, or hold your head high; smile, or not, according to the state of your teeth.

While in this camera obscura, the X-ray technician, unwillingly of course, had me think about my present topic, touch. He held firm and with no hesitation oriented my head, my shoulders, my arms. He repositioned my hips, pushed my shoulder blades together, time and again checked for the waist line on whose placement the alignment of the rest of the body relies. When we were done, another memento of the state of my bones, from head to toe, was obtained, on whose clarity so much depends for the next while.

A witness for a mere ten minutes he was, for sure, a very distant witness, but whose touch I have to trust. We have gotten so used to snapshots, that friendship herself begins to look, at length, like those old, half yellow half effaced photographs. We are resigned to loosing even those who have accompanied us for a long while, and nod accordingly: yes indeed, there's an end to everything, it is in the order of things. Nothing to regret. Nothing to be nostalgic about. After all, who cares about those old photographs any longer, which tried so hard to show you in your best light, which tried to make you look lovable, so somebody would want to call you their friend?