Ring Around The Rosy

Honestly, I don’t know what is wrong with me. I am so emotional that I have been crying over the drop of a hat for several weeks now. Probably since I had that wicked flu and was throwing up non stop for days. It reminded me of everything that I try to forget.

I keep repeating my version of the nursery rhyme ‘Ring around the rosy, pocketful of cancer, hush-a hush-a, we all fall dead.’ Why I’m torturing myself I really don’t know.

Right now my back is killing me, so does that mean the cancer is on the move. Like my dear friend Pat says ‘You have a sore on your hand and you think it is leprosy. A headache and you think it is a brain tumor.’ Any ache and any pain is cancer in my mind.

Is this the time? Is the bullet from the gun that is aimed at my head going to hit me square this time?

It has been well documented, my relationship with the monster under the bed. But this is something different. I think I am suffering a personal malaise.

My tears do not belong to the family of boo hoo hoo, nor do they belong to the family of hoo hoo boo; rather they belong to the family of silent, eyes welling up, tears just falling off your chin in mourning.

My head floods with the images of the people I have known and loved. The slow inevitable decay as things got worse; the surprising speed with which it all ended. Like receiving needles, anticipation of the needle can be the worst, only in this case I know it isn’t the worst, it is only the beginning.

I was never given any guarantees. I take the optimistic side of all of my medical info. Not that it matters one little bit. Not that there is a single thing I can do about it. The sheer helplessness and impotence of the situation can be paralyzing.

Of waiting to be told that this will not end well. Getting an elbow to the ribs reminding you that they said it would not end well right from the beginning where it already was not going well. Reminding you not to be surprised, you have been told all along.

‘Ring around the rosy, pocket full of cancer, hush-a hush-a we all fall dead.’

My soul and I have been talking and we think that because I love my family and my life so much I just can’t bear the thought of leaving them or it. My husband, my children, my granddaughter; it is too much to bear.

My family scene was set and all the characters were comfortably in place. A middle-aged couple hoping to retire one day with lots of grandchildren to remind them of their youth. Three adult children and one son-in-law with another son-in-law on the way. Two careers. A house. Extended families, friends, dreams, and aspirations.

There is just one other character yet to introduce. Crawling through a crack in the foundation, waiting in the wings offstage just behind the blinds by the air vent, smelling like cells gone haywire, and taking up residence in my right breast. The bad guy, the one with enough power to, at the very minimum, kill me and destroy everyone else too. There is no doubt that he will kill me one day, but destroy my family he will never do.

‘Ring around the rosy, pocket full of cancer, hush-a hush-a we all fall dead.’

When I was first diagnosed I was devastated. Then I had treatments and was so sick that at certain points I didn’t really care anymore; as a matter of fact I sometimes wished that a stranger would creep up to my bedroom and blow my brains out. Then my chemo stopped because my heart needed a rest (in more ways than one) and I started to feel better.

And even though I have reached a place where the pain and side effects are more or less managed, who’s to say that they won’t show up again sooner than later, out of the blue, ready to pounce on me again because I have tricked myself into believing that I might be one of the lucky ones. Cancer is a tricky bastard and the universe is even a trickier bastard and who knows what the two of them might cook up.

This was always a losing battle. I always knew it was. It’s just that living without hope isn’t much of a life. It is a hard thing to fight when you know you’re not going to win.

My body, my mind, my emotions, they are all tied up in knots and braced against more pain and illness. I remember the illness. And I don’t know if I can live through that again.

‘Ring around the rosy, pocket full of cancer, hush-a hush-a we all fall dead.’

I was a child who grew up in a dream and became the woman who married the man with whom she had three children and raised them in the dream too. I have always been more of a denial type of person; you know, pretend it’s not there and make it to the finish line.

I remember being one of many sisters, but now I am the one sister. The sister that is dying while the others are not. The sister that was, and will be again, stuck in a bed while the many sisters can get up and walk away. I remember clearly the distancing between me, sick as a dog on the couch, and the others sitting close by. Close by, but never ever close enough to know.

‘Ring around the rosy pocket full of cancer, hush-a hush-a we all fall dead.’

I must comfort myself with what I have always comforted myself with ‘words.’ Thank you Francis Bacon for these:

Begin
doing what
you want to do now.
We are not living in eternity.
We have only this moment, sparkling
like a star in our hand –
and melting like a
snowflake.

I remind myself that partly cloudy is partly sunny and that here on this earth right now I have been given the opportunity to live with angels. This life here and now is good and the people I am able to share my life with are good. I have to believe that this time here will not be all there is because my soul will never be full of them. My soul will yearn for them always.

Maybe I am being morbid, but it’s really that when you have a terminal illness, well, that’s a time when you just can’t live for the future any more. This was and continues to be a huge burden for me. And sometimes I really don’t know how to be with it.

Roger Housden states “To be vulnerable to the mystery of our life as it presents itself, requires forgoing our hopes and fears for the future and being willing to taste what is here before us, in all its poignant bittersweetness.”

I am still here (thanks darling Jill). I need to show up and be present every day and maybe, just maybe that will be enough (but I don’t feel it will).

The words of ‘Ring around the rosy’ date back to the Great Plague of London in 1665 (bubonic plague). The symptoms of the plague included a rosy red rash in the shape of a ring on the skin (ring around the rosy). Pockets were filled with sweet smelling herbs or posies which were carried due to the belief that the disease was transmitted by bad smells. The term hush-a hush-a was really ashes, ashes which referred to the cremation of the dead.