Writing Through Cancer

(Originally posted on May 27, 2012)

Last night, I impatiently flipped through television channel after channel, irritated by the preponderance of reality television programs.  Just as I decided to turn off the set, I stumbled on a video clip of Peter, Paul and Mary, a folk singing trio from the sixties, being featured on our local public radio station, KPBS. I was immediately transported back to the first time I saw the trio in concert in 1963.  As I watched the show, I also remembered how their music changed and reflected the social and political unrest of that time: civil rights marches, campus demonstrations and anti-war protests.  I watched, and I remembered, singing along to their songs, recalling my own stories as theirs were told.

In those days, my youthful idealism was dominated by a singular belief that war was wrong. I knew or understood little about the young men and women who, by choice or by the call of the draft, were sent into war.  It was, unlike the war my father fought in, one that polarized a nation at home, without ticker tape parades or welcoming crowds to celebrate the veterans returning from Vietnam, so divisive were the politics of the time.

Some things haven’t changed for me.  I am still a pacifist all these decades later, anti-war, and admittedly disheartened by the tenor of political debate in this country.  But I now realize, unlike the idealistic young student I was in the sixties, the staggering toll war has on the human spirit, on those who have fought in any war, for any nation.  That kind of service to one’s country, whatever I may feel about war itself, is an extraordinary sacrifice.  I am saddened by the costs of war—the losses and injuries that mark a human being forever, the ruin and devastation of countries in the wake of battle.  This morning, I’ve been listening to the veterans’ voices on NPR, their remembrances of war as we celebrate this Memorial Day Weekend.  I am touched by their bravery, humbled by their stories.

First celebrated as a national holiday on May 30, 1868, and called “Decoration Day,” it was intended to honor the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  General John Logan, the commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, is said to have chosen the end of May as the official holiday because there would be more flowers in bloom, flowers that were ultimately placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers in an act of reconciliation at Arlington National Cemetery.  Today, Memorial Day is celebrated on the final Monday of May, and it honors all U.S. troops who have died in war.

As a child, I didn’t fully understand the meaning of Memorial Day.  For my siblings and me, it was simply a date meant to honor the dead—no matter how they died.  Every Memorial holiday, my father’s extended family, then numbering between forty or fifty aunts, uncles and cousins, gathered at the family graveside in Hornbrook, a small town in Northern California.  While my aunts and uncles paid tribute to our deceased relatives and placed flowers on their gravesites, we restless children turned the cemetery into an adventure, examining all the different gravesites dotting the grounds and challenging one another to find the headstone with the oldest dates engraved on it.  We knew nothing about the stories or the people whose remains lay beneath the earth.

Perhaps it’s why, as I consider the traditions of our national holiday, that I remember warriors, other battles—illness, unexpected tragedies or disasters–that have taken peoples’ lives.  Many of these individuals, like our soldiers, also faced danger, fear and uncertainty, like those who experienced the relentless stalking by the silent enemy called cancer.  They also have inspired those who knew and loved them, taught us how precious life is, even as we knew the odds were stacked against them.  They, like our soldiers, are heroes too.  I think of the chorus to Bette Midler’s “Wind Beneath My Wings,”  Did you ever know that you’re my hero?”  For me, Memorial Day is a time to remember, a time to honor them all.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed The National Moment of Remembrance Act,” calling upon all Americans to pause at 3 p.m., local time, on Memorial Day and remember those who died fighting for this country.  I plan to do that, but I’ll be remembering more than those who died fighting this country’s wars.  For a few moments tomorrow, on Memorial Day, I’ll pause to honor all those who, throughout history, have lost their lives to many kinds of  battles.  I invite you to remember along with me—whether in written or spoken words or simply honor each of your heroes with a moment of silence.

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There was little time for me to think about Mother’s Day this past weekend.  I flew to Northern California on Friday afternoon, reluctantly boarding the airplane with the beginnings of a head cold, waiting nearly three hours for my delayed flight in the crowded and noisy Terminal One at San Diego International, and, after picking up the rental car, sinking into a hotel bed exhausted, wondering how I’d lead the all-day writing workshop with faculty, students and alumni of the Stanford Medical School the following day.

I didn’t feel any better when morning came, but thanks to a great group of writers, a little decongestant and cough suppressant, the workshop went off as planned.  That evening, I drove over the Santa Cruz Mountains to Aptos for a short visit with two dear friends.  They had anticipated my fatigue.  I was greeted with the warmth of a fireplace, appetizers and a light supper, then shown to the guest room, where cough drops and a vaporizer had already been set up for my ailing self. Honestly, I felt mothered—taken care of and loved.

By the time I returned home yesterday afternoon—again, on a delayed flight—I wasn’t even thinking of Mother’s Day, but cards and flowers from my daughters and husband were there to greet me—along with some cough syrup, aspirin, and a vaporizer filled and ready to go, something my husband had retrieved from the garage and set up in the bedroom.  “We’ll celebrate tomorrow,” he said, as I slipped beneath the covers and inhaled the familiar set of Vicks Vapor Rub.  Memories overtook me.  My mother’s hand on my fevered brow when, as a child, I suffered through colds, flu, fevers and assorted other childhood illnesses.  Vick’s was always part of the care, part of the healing, and something my daughters came to know during the worrisome nights when their anxious mother laid awake listening to the sound of their coughs, and rising two or three times in the night to place my hand on their foreheads just as my mother had done with me.  It’s a ritual of motherly caring that they now practice with their own children when they are ill.

Mother’s Day has passed, and yet, the scent of Vick’s has me remembering so many little things about the way my mother cared for me and in turn, my first years as an anxious, worried parent living thousands of miles away from my mother and father.  There are stories in each of those memories, some funny, some tender, and others tinged with sorrow or regret.  Each offers many writing possibilities.  Here are some suggestions from my 2014 Mother’s Day post:

.  Think about your mother (or anyone who was like a mother to you) and the role she has played in your life.   What are some of your most important memories of your mother?  What qualities or anecdotes best describe your mother?  How can you bring your mother’s character to life on the page?
.  How we feel about our mothers—and ourselves as mothers–—is complex.  Remember the poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens? In each stanza, the reader is offered something like a snapshot, all different but always, the word, “blackbird,” appearing in each.
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime…

One writing suggestion is to try imitating Stevens’ structure and write thirteen ways of looking at a mother (or motherhood) and see what happens.

.  Of course, mothers also give us advice, lots of it; some that we appreciate; some we don’t want to hear.  In a delightful essay entitled, “Advice from My Grandmother,” Alice Hoffman creates an unmistakable portrait of her grandmother, Lillie Lutkin, by offering the reader all the advice given to her by her:

Cook badly.  Even if you’re already a bad cook, make it worse.  Trust me, it’s easy.  Throw in anything you want.  Too much salt, too much pepper.  Feed him and see what he says.  A complaint means he’s thinking about himself, and always will.  A compliment means he’ll never make a living.  But a man who says, “Let’s go to a restaurant,” now he’s a real man.  Order expensive and see what he’s got to say then.  (In Family:  American Writers Remember Their Own, 1996).

.  We learn from our mothers lessons of love and life, many of them not appreciated until we’re much older.  What a mother teaches us can become material for a character portrait as Julia Kasdorf creates in the poem, “What I Learned from my Mother.”

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point…

(From: Sleeping Preacher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Today and this week, write about mothers, yours, your mother’s or anyone who has played the role of mother in your life.  Write from whatever idea or memory comes to mind.  Remember your mother in as many ways as you can.

Mother’s Day may be over, but how we think of and communicate our appreciation and love for our mothers and grandmothers is, I hope, not limited to one day of greeting cards.  Remember mothers and motherhood—and the stories you have of yours.

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