From Ant to Eagle(46)

We kept playing Mario but now I really couldn’t focus. Oliver had to remind me when it was my turn. I kept thinking about what he’d said—the cancer crumble. I hated the sound of it but I knew deep down that it was true. My family was crumbling. A wave of sadness flooded me and I guess it must have shown on my face because Oliver looked at me and for a second he looked just as gloomy. But then his face cracked and his familiar grin returned. More than that, it spread into a giant belly laugh and I looked at him. What was he laughing about? What was so funny about my family falling apart?

“A lot of comfort that was,” he cackled. “Here you are telling me that you’re worried about your family and I go blabbing about how awful it’s been for mine. Remind me never to become a social worker.” He continued laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes because tears had formed underneath. Finally, he stopped and took on a somewhat more serious face. “Look, I wish I could tell you how to work things out—how to make everything better between your parents—but I can’t. Your parents are going to have to work things out for themselves and I hope for your sake they do. I won’t sugarcoat the facts: fifty percent of marriages end after a child is diagnosed with cancer. Sounds like crappy odds but in the cancer game, those aren’t too bad. And you can always choose to look at it like this—fifty percent of parents stick it out together.”

I hoped my parents would be in that fifty percent. If Sammy died and my parents divorced, that would be the end of everything.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure. Since I’m obviously such an uplifting source of information,” he said.

I laughed. “Yeah, speaking of uplifting, were you ever, umm, how do I say this, depressed from your cancer?”

“Was I ever? Man, I’m still depressed. Dying is depressing—dying for as long as I’ve been dying is really depressing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said.

“Why? You’re worried Sammy is depressed?”

I nodded.

“Why do you think that?”

“I dunno. He’s just been…distant recently. Like nothing I do or say is right. I wasn’t sure if it was just the medicines or the cancer or if I’m doing something wrong. I mean—I try. I really do. I ask him all the time how he’s feeling and if he wants me to read him some of The Secret Garden—”

“The Secret Garden?” Oliver said, raising his arms as he interrupted. “That book is brutal.”

“Well, we used to read Goosebumps books but he’d always get nightmares.”

“So?”

“So I didn’t want him getting nightmares so I chose something else. I probably could have found something a little more interesting—maybe I’ll do that.”

“No, no, no. Don’t find something else, go back to the Goosebumps books—for starters—and stop asking him how he’s feeling.”

“Huh?”

Oliver lifted the top of his hospital gown back up as it had fallen down when he’d lifted his arms. “I may not be able to help you with your parents, but here’s something I can help with. Okay, what do you think the worst part of having cancer is?”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to say the word but since Oliver seemed to use it so easily I figured I could too. “Dying?”

“Hah, so the whole world thinks. Nope, not at all. We’re all dying—you’re dying, Dr. Parker’s dying, my mom’s dying—some of us are just a little faster than others. Dying isn’t the worst part of cancer. Even worrying about dying isn’t the worst part of cancer. The worst part of cancer changes on a weekly—sometimes even daily—basis. Let’s see, this week the worst part of cancer for me was that I couldn’t breathe without feeling like I was inhaling fire. Last week it was my stomach pain. The week before that my leg went numb and tingly for two days straight. And then there’s always the throwing up.”

I didn’t understand and it must have shown so Oliver continued. “When you ask Sammy how he’s feeling what does he have to do?”

I shrugged.

“Two options: either he tells you about what’s bothering him, which then leads to a lengthy discussion in which he has to actively concentrate on his symptoms, or he does what most of us do, he just says he feels fine. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s a lie, but who cares, it saves us from a conversation we’d have to have a thousand times a day if we didn’t. Watch what Dr. Parker does every time he comes in. Sometimes it’s magic, sometimes it’s a discussion about birthday parties, sometimes it’s a joke—but he never starts off asking how we feel.”

I was starting to understand. Distraction—that’s what it was about. By asking Sammy how he felt I was drawing attention to the things that were bothering him. I needed to do the opposite.

“The best thing you can do is pretend Sammy doesn’t have cancer at all. Stop trying to protect him from dying and just be… normal. When you get diagnosed with cancer it’s like the whole world starts pitying you and treating you differently. Before I was diagnosed I’d never even seen a TV. Now look at me, I’ve beaten Mario so many times I could probably do it with my eyes closed. Make sense?”

I nodded. It did make sense. I felt a little better and I finally managed to get Luigi past the first mushroom man. Of course I died on the next one, but hey, small steps right? I wanted to get back to the room to talk to Sammy but before I left I had one more question for Oliver.