Gratitude Train

I visited a friend for the first time since we got The News. She said, "I'm so sorry...."

Brief, heartfelt, appropriate. I appreciated her kindness. But, I also felt .... defensive?

(DEFENSIVE self-protective. devoted to resisting or preventing aggression or attack)

And I realized that it wasn't the first time I'd had such an ... inappropriate ... response to sympathy or to a friend's condolences....

(CONDOLENCE:An expression of sympathy, esp. on the occasion of a death.)

The ring of "condolence" in my mind is one of a losing battle. Yet, I know all the gracious words aren't meant that way.

And while compassion feels tolerable, sympathy feels like too much "worry" for what I'm declaring a battle already half-won.

Ohhhh, ok, now we are getting somewhere.  I might be over-interpreting some solemn sympathetic offerings as "condolences" (again, see "defensive.")

When movie characters lash out in melodramatic moments with a heartfelt "Don't feel sorry for me!" I've always thought, "It's called compassion, man!  Get over your pride and soak it up!" (silently. I don't yell out during movies. Yes I do.)

But, now I get it.  My mind is making huge connotative leaps as "compassion" evolves into "sympathy" and then mutates into "condolences."

I don't mind people feeling sorry for Aria...it's a big battle for her 29 pounds. Of course this seems laike an unfair fight. But I don't want a drop of condolence. Not for me, because I'm going to make sure this ends up just fine. And not for her, because.

Anyway, as is my nature when someone appears forlorn about our little cancer situation, I feel compelled to enumerate the endless Bright Sides that have shined into this otherwise dark month. And to be clear, March 2013 was just a real piece of work that deserves to be stricken from all Gregorian, Armenian, Byzantine, and Chinese calendars. (See also: Fuck the Year of the Snake.)

In blabbing my forlorn friend about how "lucky" we actually were following the immediate first "oh shit, your baby has cancer" hit, I found it took 15+ minutes before I ran out of things to feel grateful for, and that's only because a few items slipped my mind temporarily. (I'm sure some will slip by today as well, but there's always tomorrow.)

So, even beyond "Hey, thank the gods that ER doctor noticed something was wrong with Aria besides strep!" and "Oh but, she's got the good kind of leukemia" and "Sweet! My dear cousin is a pediatric oncology nurse who can make this all a little less foreign," I've got a few other things to be grateful for:

The hospital we unexpectedly were admitted to happens to be part of the Children's Oncology Group, which has the bestest protocol for treating Aria. If we flew to St. Jude's, she'd be on the same program. Children's? Same plan.  But our hospital of choices also happens to be 7 suburban minutes from our front door. As we've have made twice daily trips there, I'm thankful we didn't go downtown.

We also could have still been living in San Francisco, home of many of my dearest friends. But in all likelihood, my hometown is offering a better support system than I might have managed as a city transplant.

That said, 85% of the people who have been helping us are new to our lives. They are the neighbors we've met while the girls play outside, the parents of their schoolmates, truly great friends we've made after we arrived back here 5 year ago.

My sweet neighbor brought us parking passes for the hospital. This sounds small. It is not. It is not the money, it's the hassle, oh the hassle! The only think I loathe more than parking garages? Hassle. And with these passes we can even valet! It's like a vacation hotel now! (Except inside it's more that like The Shining for little Aria.)



Also,a as I mentioned, the mom of one of Lyric's newer friends started a "meal train" for us mere moments after we learned that was a thing. The response has been staggering. My own mother can't find a day before June that we need a meal. And it turns out, these peeps can cook, despite all the yawn-inducing "low sugar low salt blah blah" menu restrictions.

Speaking of my mother, I know this is subtracting a few years from her emotional longevity. But she's hanging in there and even washed my dishes a couple of times. Score. More importantly, she's really become an important safety net for the oft-forgotten big sister.

Speaking of safety nets, my friend Barbara has already boozed me up repeatedly, tho in small doses so I can still adequately administer steroid treatments within, say, 12 hours. Maybe 24. She also really just seems to love me and my kids. And thus, her gorgeous, brilliant sons must be married off to my daughters. Everybody wins!

Speaking of winning (and not "winning!"), most people know I'm an atheist. I try to pretend I'm agnostic in certain company, but it's about the same as telling people you're "a performing artist" when really you answer 900-Say-Sexx calls for a living. You just use the euphemism to make everyone at the cocktail party more comfortable with your small talk.

Anyway, turns out being an atheist in a life-or-death type situation....not so bad! I really was counting on falling to pieces and obsessing over the perceived lack of afterlifeyness. In fact, no biggie. I'm actually taking strange comfort in the Gay Marriage debate taking shape.

"?"

I'm glad you asked. Check out Facebook (or Twitter..not so much Google Plus, it's too hip to play), and take in the plethora of straight people and gay people and scared people and loud people who each changed their profile image to the red equals sign.

What it means is that things bigger than me, than my tiny corner of the universe, are happening. And those things are people. Good people who give a big damn about people who are not them and are becoming more interested, or less scared, to say so. For the right reasons. And so little Aria and I are part of this bigger thing, and it is good, and I am thankful. (As a good friend of mine likes to end most of his rants...the end.)

Insert plug for Global Secular Humanist Movement here. And then talk about the bunny.


I'm beyond grateful for giant bunny suit lent by an old friend, worn by a man with impressively broad shoulders that could not be contained by the giant bunny suit, thus allowing his Metallica tshirt to peak out above his giant fluffy cotton tail. It was the first smile we got from Aria in a week.

And where has Aria been spending her days? On this Fabulous New Leather Sofa behind Door #2. I'm grateful for the friend who gave me his entire living room's worth of like-new furniture before he jets off.

OK, let's see who else. Aunty cleaned my house. Then Husband cleaned it 237 more times in the past 2 weeks. Grateful.

Gram keeps callin' just to say she loves us. So do about three dozen other friends around our neighborhood, town, country, and globe. Grateful.

The guy at DePaul who decided to let me finish my MBA a decade-and-a-half late without starting over? Hallelujah, my Jesuit brother!

The mom I don't know very well who made the minestrone soup that permanently altered my view of that soup forever. Parsnips. Faro. Who knew?

Uncle Mark: Thank you every day. And Leesa, always you, too.

The many moms who have taken my kindergartener out on dates so that she remembers she is deeply loved, even when some of us seem a bit harder to reach lately. This has also been largely responsible for keeping me sane during some of my less ... gracious .... periods. Her school faculty has been pretty ridiculously awesome to us, and her, as well. And I made a new friend here, too. We couldn't have gotten luckier.

So here's the thing...I've been writing this blog post for two weeks. I never post it because it's never done. Because I'm forgetting to include people or things that I found very important to be grateful for. But the credits are rolling, the music is getting louder, and they're going to take my statue away if I don't get the hell away from the podium.....