Pop89: Lo, these many years

By Madonna Hamel

Yesterday afternoon I was fitted for a protective mask to go over my head for radiology treatments to my brain tumour. While waiting in the basement of the Saskatoon Cancer Clinic, my sister Celeste reminded me, once again, of the order of upcoming events: treatments, dispensations of new medications, where and when we’ll stay for the duration. And, most important, what our snacking options were for later in the afternoon.

Ever since my craniotomy and tumour surgery, I’ve been ravenous. They tell me this is mostly due to the steroids they are giving me. I’ll go with that.

But food has been a source of misplaced comfort most of my life. As a teen, I peaked at 200 pounds. As a touring musician, I ate far too much road food.

But underneath all the knee-jerk grabs for second helpings, salty or sweet, here’s what I’ve finally come to understand: my true yearning, my hunger, has been for a connection with Mystery, with divinity, with a bed of eternal bliss that lately has been rendering me small gifts of wonder and gratitude.

In previous columns I’ve mentioned the experience of “waves from the shore” or “toe waggles” or glimpses of glory. I consider them all gifts from God. I’ll leave it to you to conceive of what that might mean. The feeling of God the Father eludes me, and I wish it didn’t, but I appreciate anyone who has that connection. I think the guy in a white beard was such a comic-book image for me as a Catholic kid that I was left both cold and suspicious. However, having said that, I’ve since met a few white-bearded men I consider transmitters of God-like wisdom, kindness and direction.

However, I still have to do something about my all-hours forays to the all-night treat tray and snack fridge at the end of the cancer care lodge hallway. It could be midnight, or 2, or just before the oatmeal truck comes round at 7 a.m. I grab the last of the heavily wrapped chocolate coconut squares and rip open a packet of peanut butter and spread it over the square like icing.

I tell myself the craving will pass. I just had brain surgery, after all. My biggest challenge is to stay present to the moment, be curious about what comes next and learn to relinquish myself to the God I’m managing to be on amiable terms with. Barring divine intervention, my other great challenge is to untangle the layers of Saran Wrap keeping me from the last chocolate chip cookie in the building.

In Celeste’s lap sits a blue binder filled with every piece of medical information, containing everything from my medications to details of medical procedures to appointment schedules to hotel reservations. The binder itself was built by another sister, Jody, a school teacher whose organizational muscle kicked in the minute she received the news of my arrival by helicopter at Royal University Hospital.

A social worker joins us in the waiting room and asks me a bunch of questions about my situation and how I’m coping and what kind of support networks I have in place for the long haul that awaits me. We know we can’t mention dying, but we also know that treatment can guarantee only so much.

I nod at my sister and my other sister’s binder and begin to tear up. My siblings are the greatest love of my life. They always have been, for as long as I can remember. I don’t have a spouse. I don’t even want one. I live in a village of 89 people on the border of Grasslands National Park, and while I do have good neighbours and friends, they cannot replace the intimate connection and affection of siblings that has carried me through lo these many years.

Nothing can ever replace nor explain the blood tie we share. I can barely get through the sentence without my voice cracking, even though just that very morning I was cussing Celeste under my breath as she led the way to the hospital appointment.

“I can hear you, you know,” she said, just steps ahead.

I wanted to stop and take a picture of an emergency helicopter landing, an experience I’d undergone without being conscious of just a month earlier, and she wanted to be sure we made it to my appointment in time. Of course, she should have just kept walking, left me to my own devices, but there was no way in the world, what with my newly acquired brain injury, I would have known where I was going, why I was going there or when I was expected to show up. Space and time are just concepts now, and though, if I try really hard, I may be able to align them like beads on a string, they are susceptible to rolling and bouncing onto the pavement.

And so my sister waits for me to catch up. And I shuffle my way forward, thankful I can walk with relative ease and that she has the patience and grace to keep her own cusses to herself. We know we will joke about it later, or, if not joke, at least examine and marvel at how this latest familial crisis is taking its toll on our lives. I don’t know why my siblings still put up with my quirks and self-absorption, but they do.

I’m often frustrated, heartbroken and curious all at once. But above all, I’m clinging to my good fortune and the fact that I’ve been graced with siblings who don’t think twice when called.

Just last night, we recalled how in grade school Celeste was the one who came round with the can opener at lunch to open our apple juices. There has never been a moment in our lives where anyone has said, “Sorry. No. I can’t.” It’s always been: I’m on my way. Lo, these many years.