The Staircase Letters
Page 4
Dear C. and A.,
Middle of the night chills time. I was just reading the latest Maclean’s (mistake No. 1, no doubt) and it contained a description of ex-Beatle Paul McCartney visiting George Harrison, who has entered “the final stage of his life.” Apparently, George denied the existence of his “brain cancer” (as they call it—it’s metastasized lung cancer, just like mine) in July, and on October 1st he recorded a sound track for an album, and now he’s reached the end. That’s less than two months ago.
Oh well, I was glad to see that while Paul had cried, George was in pretty good spirits. (Probably manic on steroids, unfortunate man, as my doctor accuses me of being when she thinks I’m too cheerful.) At least he appears to be somewhat compos mentis. But the speed with which a lung cancer patient can go from functioning fairly normally to being at death’s door has clearly not been exaggerated. On the other hand, perhaps that’s not such a bad thing … oh dear, I seem to be an incurable optimist.
I might add that Mart and I have been having some fairly intensive talk sessions and I think he is really going through a very bad patch right now. The reality of the situation is beginning to hit him pretty hard. Actually, I think it’s just as well that he had that transition period of denial. I guess it’s a phase one has to go through at some point, and I’m not sure I’ve quite finished with it yet myself, though I seem to be experiencing a number of the so-called requisite stages simultaneously. Anyway, I hope we can do some special things together—and with friends and family—during the next few months, and also just be.
And now I will go back to reading Winnie-the-Pooh or The Wind in the Willows—both, in their very different ways, extremely profound books, and of far more lasting impact than anything in Maclean’s, thank God. Do you ever re-read those classics? Winnie has all kinds of helpful hints for cheering oneself up in scary situations, and even for hanging on for dear life (as when dangling in the air surrounded by bees).
A few days later, she wrote again, but just to me.
I am not dead—indeed, I am very well right now, and also very busy. I’m trying to do 100 things before (a) my next round of chemo beginning December 12th and (b) Christmas visitors, who start arriving December 18th— just as I’m back on my feet again, I hope!
Carol’s cancer has suddenly become much more aggressive. At this point, we both realize how little time we have, but Carol has had many ups and downs, and hers will probably be a slower process, whereas right now I am in quite good shape. But when the brain starts to lose it, it will do so at quite a speed, from what I’ve been told.
In whatever time she and Carol had left, however, it became evident that they would both summon the strength to cope with prejudice and stupidity wherever found, sometimes even in doctors.
In early December, Elma had indicated to Carol her state of fury over a letter her doctor had written in support of a disability claim: she was critical of the letter’s phrasing, its offhand tone, its lack of sensitivity. Furthermore, she found difficulty talking to Martin about it, worried that he was
still in some sort of state of denial, and we never seem to have time to talk about the things that really matter. We do not really have an easy communication system— shorthand or otherwise—for this situation as yet. It came on us too suddenly, I think, though it has improved a great deal in the past few days, and will continue to do so, especially as Mart will be teaching only one course next term. His department head offered to have someone else take over the other.
Carol had written back the same day.
Dear Elma,
You need never apologize to me for a burst of outrage. I’m on your team here. Please continue to hold my hand, as I will hold yours, all the way.
Tactless doctors. And how dare they use the word lady or ladies. Oiiiiii! Really, a good many of them have not evolved. (I’m feeling very evolved these days, a comfort.)
Your words about Martin not being able to talk to you about this struck Don—who has always read my mail (I read his too). It’s like having a joint account. Should we be talking more? he asked me. My answer: we are talking all the time, only in the very private code we’ve evolved over all these forty-four years, part of it gesture, of course, and certain kinds of jokes. Neither of us knows how to do this, but I don’t want to do it the sappy way, whatever that means.
My dear friend, hang on tight.
love,
carol
I felt myself challenged again for something to say to Elma that might be of interest to Carol. I could understand their anger about the doctor’s dismissive tone, recognizing, as I did, that under any civilized veneer, including my own, there lurk always passions ready to erupt, even when triggered by something relatively small. “We are the animals Christ is rumoured to have died for,” wrote Robinson Jeffers, the great American poet. And were it not for the redemptive flashes of insight coming now from Carol and Elma, I could be easily persuaded, in my own dark moments, that Jeffers spoke the truth.
Thus I began one early December morning:
Good morning, dear E. and C.!
I would like to think you are both sleeping peacefully as I start this at 9 a.m. my time, but, knowing you, Elma, you are probably wide awake, while you, Carol, in Victoria, may be moving down a beautiful set of curving crystal stairs in search of sleep and finding it before you get to the bottom.
After both your letters, I am teased out of thought, contemplating all the things I don’t understand and may never. I have not been afflicted like Job, like both of you, though maybe in other emotional ways, years ago, at the time of my divorce, wondering how I would survive and almost didn’t. Do I deserve now to be with Alasdair on this wonderful plateau of understanding in old (or is it just older) age, and to be with other friends and family, as well, rejoicing in every day I have? No, of course I don’t deserve it, any more than each one of you deserves what has been measured out to you. I cannot know, I can only imagine what it must be like to be counting the days, as you must now count them, but I suppose, also, as all of us must and should now count them. One day at a time, O Lord! “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.” It has all been said already. I blather on, but my heart is full.
The “private code of communication” that you, Carol, spoke of puts it beautifully. In varying ways and to varying degrees, that’s what we all share. A blunt, head-on verbal explication just won’t do. Music, in its highest forms, can move us towards that other state of being. You and I, Elma, realized that a long time ago when we listened to Mahler together.
Blue jays and black-capped chickadees are now at the bird feeder below the upstairs window of my small study where I am writing this. The day advances, and you are surely now awake. I hope it will be a good day for each of you.
Ever … ever … ever …
A.
Elma’s reply came the following day, and I wrote again two days after that.
Dear A.,
Actually, I was asleep, so there! Why wouldn’t I be at 11.30 a.m. my time? It’s one of my best times for sleeping. As to Carol and me, of course you too have been, and will be, afflicted with times of wondering how you will survive. You understand, and know how to express that understanding, very well indeed.
As for suffering, I endured far more and— worse—inflicted far more, and with more painful damage to everyone concerned, when I was drinking. Paradoxically, perhaps, a lot of what I learned, and have tried to make a part of my approach to life, comes from that period and from AA. Maybe it’s all just a part of a much bigger picture. I hope so.
Ever … ever … ever …
E.
Dear E.,
I guess it was inevitable that for so many years, as you were coping with your life and your family and I was coping with mine, our communication became little more than an exchange of Christmas cards. Now, when you write as you have just done, I feel the great gap. But we have the presen
t, and the present matters. You’re there. I’m here. But I’m also there.
Ever … ever … ever …
A.
It was, indeed, a great gap, for I had moved my family in 1970 from Bishop’s University in Quebec to Mount Allison in New Brunswick, and the adjustment was difficult for all of us. I was caught up in university politics as a dean and then academic vice-president; my wife was understandably unhappy as she tried to cover up a broken marriage; and my children had to make new friends in a new place. But even before my move to eastern Canada, Elma had produced a son and a daughter, John and Beth, in 1967 and 1969, and then her stillborn son in 1971. There had been a ten-year addiction to alcohol, and an attempt at suicide, more of a cry for help, when she had slashed her left wrist in three places with razor blades, and was kept in a hospital ward for five days—shut up against her will, as she expressed it. But soon after that, she began her long, tough journey to recovery through AA, and a perfectly healthy son, James, was born in 1973.
In our Christmas cards, there were only incomplete references made to all of these happenings, little notes that did nothing to indicate her deepest anguish, nothing to indicate mine. The nature of friendship, however, is such that gaps of time are of no real consequence, for anything truly there in the first place is never completely lost.
Elma was in better spirits when she wrote to Carol that same December day:
Dear Carol,
You asked me once about AA. Essentially, the idea is that you have to believe in a “power greater than yourself.” This can be, and often is in these more secular times, the power of the group you belong to. Or a special circle of friends. It can certainly be love. (For many years, that’s what it was for me.) I have known of a number of people who at least began by agreeing that alcohol was a power greater than themselves … but since one is also supposed to believe that this power can “restore us to sanity,” I think one would eventually have to take it a bit further! So, no, one does not have to believe in God, though recently I have discovered that in fact I do, somewhat to my surprise, though I would hate to try to define the concept, since it is both infinitely cosmic and as close as my heartbeat. It’s more a question of believing that there is something you can draw on when you need help.
One of the aims of AA is to take yourself out of the centre of the universe. And you do this by reaching out of your own experience to try to help someone else—if you don’t pass it on, you lose it, so to speak. A very old and sound method of healing. I’ve seen it at work in psychiatric wards where far more good was done to patients by fellow patients than by any professional. It’s truly amazing and wonderful to watch a person who has been sunk in total apathy and depression roused to reach out a hand to help someone even worse off. (Another valuable experience I gained from being an alcoholic—and one which I think has helped me to understand and, I hope, help others—was being shut up against my will in such a ward.)
A very happy note: I had a blood check today, and after the last awful round of chemo, my white cells are down so much and I am so anemic, that I don’t have to have any more chemo until January. I get a blood transfusion next week, instead—a much nicer prospect. It also explains why I have been feeling so tired and draggy recently. My naps were certainly getting longer and more frequent. I was afraid it was the beginning of the end, or something.
In addition, for the next four days (I’ve already done one today) I get to “shoot up” with a substance that is supposed to stimulate my bone marrow into making more white cells. All this means that I will not barely be recovering from chemo when my family starts arriving, nor do I have to worry for the next couple of months about every little sniffle someone else may have. Not only that, but my doctor doubled my dose of dexamethasone to help restore some of my diminishing sense of physical balance and coordination—she was actually the one who suggested it!
Anyway, I feel as if I have been given a new lease on life. To say nothing of the excitement of learning how to inject myself, albeit only subcutaneously so far. You never know when a skill like that will come in handy!
Much love,
Elma
On my birthday that year, without even realizing it was my birthday, Elma sent me the sort of present that makes any teacher’s life worthwhile, fulfilling her own injunction to express what is truly in the heart while one is still alive to express it. “Why don’t we tell people what we admire about them and how much they mean to us more often? We let all these chances slip by,” she had earlier written to Carol, passing on what friends had suggested all of us should do.
Dear A,
This is a somewhat belated reply to something you said earlier about the years during which we were mainly in touch through Christmas cards. Well, yes … in a literal and detailed sense. But when have we ever really been out of touch?
Never forget that, since I was seventeen years old, you have been one of the people who has most influenced my life, and always been one of the most important people in it. You taught me so much about truly seeing and hearing—not just in literature and especially in drama, but in life—about sensitivity to other people and attitudes, about taking the time to care. I can’t think of a way you ever influenced me but for good. You made me a better person than I would have been without knowing you.
No, I don’t mean you’re perfect, and I didn’t put you on a pedestal even when I was an undergrad. You were, for example, a most irritating person to work with sometimes on a play, when you said things like—“Well, I don’t care how you get the effect, with or without make-up. I know she’s a healthy twenty-year-old, but she has to look as if she’s fifty and dying of syphilis. That’s your problem—just do it.” And I did, eventually!
And your understanding was always there, as I hope you know mine was for you, without words, and over whatever time and distance. You said it yourself: “You’re there. I’m here. But I’m also there.” And will be.
Ever … ever … ever …
E.
Knowing that I took time to care, back when we were both young, may have been what led Elma to entrust herself to me, as she did for all those last months of her life. But how do I account for the caring? Was my caring intuitive or premeditated? I should like to think the first, but something of the second was also mixed in, the result of a personal experience when I was a student at Oxford.
In my final set of critical exams, I did badly, and this after my tutor thought I would do particularly well. “I have great hopes you’ll get a good degree,” said this distinguished scholar, with whom I had been working once a week for two years. Whether it was on the Scottish Chaucerians or Tristram Shandy or the use made by Shakespeare of Holinshed’s Chronicles when writing the history plays, I was made to cover every possible topic in the great sweep of English literature, starting with Beowulf, reading it in Anglo-Saxon, and ending with the Victorians. It was just the two of us in his college study, the ideal way for anyone to learn, with the great man assuring me at the end of two years that I would get a “good” degree, by which he meant first-class honours or a “good second.” But when that did not happen, I was unable to tell him why or explain the results to anyone else. I thought him on an intellectual plane so far above me that he could never have understood my inner turmoil. Besides, I was afraid. Between my own heart and mind, there had occurred a total split.
The lingering effects of whooping cough were still with me—a serious enough affliction when one is an adult—but beyond that, I was emotionally and intellectually devastated from an unreciprocated love affair that I could tell no one about, because it was with another man. Neither was I later comforted to know that A. E. Housman had suffered much the same academic fate at Cambridge years before, and for much the same reason—and it wasn’t whooping cough. The story is there in A Shropshire Lad:
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave
And miles around the wonder grew
How well I did behave.
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.
That was 1896. Fifty years later, being gay was still a criminal offence, and I saw no way to climb out of my despair.
Somehow I survived, but only just. Crossing back to Canada by ship some weeks later, I seriously contemplated jumping into the dark Atlantic; and that image of myself standing at the rail, looking down into a black ocean, remains terrifying. But I made then a vow that I would try to care as deeply as I could for any student I might eventually have, if I ever became a teacher. I would try for the caring instead of the detachment I felt from those higher up when I was a student in crisis. In that way, I might, at least, redress a balance. Patterns within patterns. Designs within designs. I would do what I could. Elma, in time, became part of that pattern.
It was shortly after my mid-December birthday that Carol initiated a philosophic pre-Christmas discussion with Elma on the nature of happiness. It was timed for the season. No matter the circumstances, doesn’t everyone want to be happy?
Dear E.,
My daughter Anne was here for two days this week, and I asked her if she had any advice for me. “Be happy,” she said. This made us both laugh because we used to make fun of Reader’s Digest articles about “Being Happy While Dying of Cancer.” But it does, in a way, seem a choice we can make. Do you agree or not? Why would we waste precious time being unhappy? But it may be we have no control over this. I think of you every day.
much love,
carol
Dear C.,
Your apparently simple question about choosing to be happy set off a great debate between me and my cousin (whose brother died of cancer last year), and later with another friend whose husband died in September of the same kind of cancer I have, and who has the same way of handling life’s vicissitudes—i.e., usually with a black sense of humour. We ranged all over the map from the existence (or not) of free will, to the nature of hedonism (a very hard philosophical position to refute)— i.e., that if you choose to be miserable, you are doing so because being miserable makes you happy, so you are always choosing to be happy, no matter what.