Letter to my children: When is the sky falling?

Dearest Beloveds,

I was recently on the phone with a social worker who told me there are a lot of resources available to have you two talk to someone about my health doings – therapists trained to talk to children about death and dying and sickness.

My current thinking on this is that until the sky falls, the sky isn’t falling. Having someone tell you the sky is falling to me doesn’t feel like a good use of anyone’s time or energy. Obviously, if the sky falls, therapy is amazing for all sorts of reasons, but until then – I am a big fan of avoiding fear mongering by categorizing experiences into buckets labeled good or bad, desirable or undesirable.

What do I mean by this?

Recently, I received this text message from an acquaintance, “It’s a very stressful day, my cousin has breast cancer and this day is not easy for anybody involved…” I wrote back immediately expressing my understanding and condolences, because that is what our society mandates. But I kept on thinking about the wording of the message especially the “my cousin has breast cancer.”

Did she just get diagnosed? Because obviously that sucks and everyone needs a month or two to land after news of that sort. Was the cousin in pain? That would suck too and I am sorry about that. Was she having breast surgery that day and therefore needed everyone to be on alert as she went into the operating room? That is super hard and I wish her all the best. Was she actively dying of breast cancer? Active death, like active labor, is really intense and I am truly sorry.

Children, the blanket statement of “has breast cancer” does nothing except to create a spiral of fear twirling under its halo of panic. We all have cancer cells in our body every moment and our immune system either zaps them properly or it doesn’t.

Cancer is a very heavy concept but it is very much removed from what one can choose to do every day within the rubric of that container. C.S. Lewis said it best in his book A Grief Observed.

Yet H. herself, dying of it, and well knowing the fact, said that she had lost a great deal of her old horror at it. When the reality came, the name and the idea were in some degree disarmed. And up to a point I very nearly understood. This is important. One never meets just Cancer, or War, or Unhappiness (or Happiness). One only meets each hour or moment that comes. All manner of ups and downs. Many bad spots in our best times, good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call ‘the thing itself’. But we call it wrongly. The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs: the rest is a name or an idea.

“One only meets each hour or moment that comes.” That is the nub of this whole issue. Recently I was driving to my infusion in Tia’s supercharged amazing manual car – the road was fast and curving, the music was loud, and your Momma’s heart was singing. Then I stood in line to buy food for Meme and the teller was being super slow and I could feel myself become snarkier and snarkier, more and more impatient. Both of those within 10 minutes, both of them under the umbrella of “your momma is actively undergoing cancer treatment.”

So here we are, your father and I, trying to figure out what to tell you or what not to tell you about what is going on. Where is the line of full disclosure of ‘the thing itself’ vs meeting each moment as it comes and leaving the label for when you are both older.*

I guess my theory is this. Dragon, this summer you walked down the steps into Tia and Michael’s pool. The third step down, you stopped, your shoulders almost fully submerged, then you turned around and went back up.

Then you did it again. You walked down the steps and this time you didn’t stop. You dropped off the edge into the water. Time stopped. My adrenaline surged. I strode in, grabbed you under your flailing armpits and pulled you onto the higher steps. I held my hands against your chest and your back – your heart was pounding so fast. You were scared. I bent down, looked at you in the eyes, and took a deep breath.

“You did it! You went all the way in! I saw you swimming!”

You looked at me, eyes wide, chest heaving.

“That was scary. You are safe. I am so proud of you.”

Your shoulders began to lower. I could feel your heartbeat steady.

“You went in all by yourself! You were doing the doggy paddle until Momma came. I am so proud of you!”

A smile crept over your face. “I went in!”

It took me 5 minutes of deep breathing to get my own heart rate down.

This falling in water story is an example of meeting each hour and moment as it comes. We could turn it into a story, “The day Dragon almost drowned,” but that doesn’t serve anything.

In other words, unless your Momma falls into the water, I am still playing on the steps. My goal is to play on the steps with you both for a long long time.

So, we will wait longer to use the term cancer with you two. I am sure the Universe will open the doors for this conversation at the right moment.

Love you both so much. Thank you for allowing me to hold this burden for you as long as I can.

*I guess a part of me realizes that me even writing this presupposes that you will not be reading your Momma’s blog for a while yet. That might be the “both older” designation.