I remember that earth-shattering day like it was yesterday. November 1st, 1999. I was baby-sitting at Juliet’s house – my youngest daughter, who lived, and still does, only minutes away from me. It was 5.00 p.m.; she’d not long come home from the secondary school where she taught Psychology. We were sitting round her kitchen table, ‘pedalling away’, as we did, when her phone rang. I’d just gone to the hall to get my coat. I yelled goodbye to the grandkids, and mouthed I would see myself out. She frantically beckoned me back, and handed me the phone.
It was my son-in-law – her sister’s husband of eight months, who’d tried her number when he couldn’t get a reply from mine. Pitch black outside, but Juliet’s house was warm and cosy – loads and loads of lamps; she’d inherited my ‘fascinated with lamps gene’ that’s for sure. As had my eldest daughter, Andrea.
“It’s Richard,” he said, and I sensed from the timbre of his tone that something was very wrong. Call it a mother’s intuition, if you will.
Inherently being of an ‘ostrich’ mentality, I tried to reply with a hint of nonchalance in my voice...that second noticing a new lamp which particularly caught my eye.
“It’s fucking come back, Tina; Andrea’s cancer. We’re gutted...Sitting on a bench in Hyde Park...Literally only just left The Royal Marsden. I’ll tell you everything later...Can we stop the night with you, please?”
But he didn’t ‘leave everything till later’, and the life-changing details of what the surgery would entail, he blurted out...As if he couldn’t bear to keep it all locked up inside...as if, having said it once, he wouldn’t have to think about it again, or worse still, actually explain to me, up close and personal, the need for ‘drastic facial surgery’... Not only disfiguring surgery, but surgery that would leave the right side of her face totally paralysed, with all the associated implications.
It was her only option...the only way of extending her life. How long, the doctor’s couldn’t be sure. Seven years, as it transpired...just six months short of her 40th birthday. Hers was such a rare form of cancer...usually affecting older people. Not someone like her, who had been in her late teens when it was first diagnosed, and she’d had the initial tumour removed. All that was left, then, was a tiny scar behind her ear.
“I’d die, rather than have them cut into my face,” she’d said, then...after the operation, even though they had told her the cancer would return...one day. And so, for the next ten years she put it out of her mind...until today when the terrible truth dawned. Secondaries had been detected in her lungs and her spine, and the initial tumour had grown back with a vengeance, and was wrapped right around her facial nerve.
We sat down and wept together, Juliet and me, and then I recall her asking if I was OK to drive home. Why not leave my car here, and let her John drop mine round tomorrow? But I did drive myself home...needed some time alone, except the journey is a blank. All I remember thinking on the way, was how, in heaven’s name, to break it to my husband, who, like me, had dreaded this day that we knew would inevitably come...sooner or later. And, somehow, summon up the strength to be supportive of both Andrea and Richard later that evening, and, of course, for however long it took. That night was the longest of my life.
By some cruel stroke of fate, exactly one year on, on November 1st, 2000, her father, himself, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. That was the day I made the decision not to keep a diary anymore. God knows how many times over the years I’d written, ‘Just an ordinary day...’ ‘Just did boring stuff; this, that, and the other’... Just the way you do.
Comments
celticman | August 17, 2011 - 13:34
Well, I suppose, this is an ordinary day in which you have written something extraordinarily touching.
seashore | August 17, 2011 - 13:35
Brave and essential writing, Tina. You use your gift so well - in every respect. Thank God (or whoever) you have it.
Coral x
RachelPatricia | August 17, 2011 - 13:50
Wonderfully brave, Tina - and I don't mean just the writing. Thanks for sharing this, I'm a little bit lost for words so I'm going to read this again and see if I can find some - such an honest and tender read and you certainly do use that remarkable gift of yours brilliantly, it's always a pleasure to read your work, your heart and soul shine through in every piece and never fail to move me :)
Thanks again and hope you are well,
Rachel xx
skinner_jennifer | August 17, 2011 - 15:17
Hello Tina,
this was heart wrenching to read, I only hope that
by writing it down, it helps somehow to ease the
pain.
And you certainly have been brave.
Take care.
Jenny.
Silver Spun Sand | August 17, 2011 - 18:12
Thanks, so very much, celtic.
Tina
Silver Spun Sand | August 17, 2011 - 18:19
Many thanks, Coral.
I only thank God that I can find a way to write about memories such as this. It is just my way of keeping my daughter's memory alive.
Thank you again for sharing these memories, and for your lovely words.
Tina x
Silver Spun Sand | August 17, 2011 - 18:27
I am so grateful to you Rachel for reading this, and letting me know your thoughts. I guess it is only by sharing our experiences, be they good or bad, that we begin to realise we are not the only one in the world that has problems, although it always seems like that at the time.
Many thanks for your kind words.
Tina xx
Silver Spun Sand | August 17, 2011 - 18:29
Hello there, Jenny.
Yes, it does help by writing things down. I don't know how I would have coped over the last four years if it wasn't for this.
I much appreciate your reading this, and your thoughtful words.
Have a peaceful evening.
Tina
Highhat | August 17, 2011 - 21:34
It's so nice to know that writing is a good vent for you and also in keeping your daughter's memory alive. You do write some brilliant stuff and I am sure that your Andrea knows that.
This is heart rendering truth and I can't express anything else but that my heart goes out to you with your pain and suffering. I think it must be very sad to live with every day. I know it would be if it happened to me.I don't always think it a comfort to know others are suffering but I believe it helps to be able to express your pain and I hope it helps getting comments like these here because I know we are all with you as you seem to be able to touch a lot of souls with your wonderful gift of writing. I am sure my words are quite inadequate but I needed to put them down for you as you always seem to give us abctalers so much of yourself. I know that nothing will ever be able to fill you up again and that makes me sad.
I hope tomorrow brings you warm sunshine and thrills in nature and the day after!
;)Pia
Silver Spun Sand | August 17, 2011 - 22:48
Your beautiful words, Pia, far from inadequate, say it all...and much, much more.
Tina;-)
oldpesky | August 18, 2011 - 13:15
When I first read this last night I hadn't a clue what to say. Even today I still don't know what to say other than this is a moving piece of writing I wish you'd never had to write.
Silver Spun Sand | August 18, 2011 - 13:24
op - thank you...for reading, and caring.
Tina
L G Meadows | August 19, 2011 - 09:37
Wow, I don't know what to say but I am giving you a big mental hug. Thanks for sharing, I know it must have been tough.
Silver Spun Sand | August 19, 2011 - 10:22
Thanks, LG. Much appreciated.
Tina
Overthetop1 | August 20, 2011 - 00:16
I feel rather like OP. Words seem inadequate to describe such a beautifully written `epitaph'. I hope your writing does release some of the pain. It was very courageous to write this. Perhaps if we could all write something about someone we have lost and loved - we may feel a little better. Your loss, however - is particulaly moving to read about. I cannot begin to imagine what losing a daughter must be like - but I feel privileged to be given a glimpse.
Silver Spun Sand | August 20, 2011 - 08:02
Yes - writing does help, tremendously...me at least, and after my loss, I don't know how I would have coped without it, and even before, in those dark, dark days.
I so appreciate your words, OTT. Thank you, so much.
Tina