All Things in Their Place

by Giulia Dell'uomo

  All Things in Their Place

  GIULIA DELL'UOMO

  Translated by Caroline Petricola

  “All Things in Their Place”

  Written By GIULIA DELL'UOMO

  Copyright © 2015 GIULIA DELL'UOMO

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Caroline Petricola

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  All Things in Their Place

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To my parents, for having given me yesterday’s strength and tomorrow’s hope.

  To Sandro, may the notes from your guitar fly freely through the air.

  All things in their place.

  ‘Sara, you have to redo the test. Hold out your arm.’

  I’m still asleep when the nurse’s voice echoes in my head. It’s not a dream and before I know it, I feel a needle prick and see the tube turn red. I had automatically extended my arm.

  ‘We’re done. Press down while I put a bandaid on it.’

  Ok, now I remember who and where I am. I yawn and stretch, reaching towards the ceiling with some force as the nurse leaves. From the window a glimmer of light enters. It gets bigger in the shadows of the room, crossing the darkness of the four walls that keep me from the outside world.

  I pull the covers back up and look at the time. It’s almost six in the morning, luckily I can sleep a bit longer. I close my eyes and my phone on the side table brings me back to reality. A message. Dad.

  Hello my princess, don’t worry. Jesus will watch over you on this journey.

  You always told me to be patient, Dad, but sometimes life tests us. That’s how I know that you are up at this hour. Worry has kept sleep away and doesn’t allow your eyes to close or your mind to switch off. No, your mind is always working, almost too aware, almost knowing too much. If you speak of Jesus, Dad (and you never do) then deep down you must believe a little. You believe that a God exists who watches over us and helps us. Or maybe you believe that a god can be close to us in these moments. If you mention it then one thing is for certain: you looked inside yourself and needed something bigger to hold on to. Something strong that, even with the mystery, has always existed and always will exist. Something science can’t give you. I appreciate it Dad. I appreciate it because you’re showing me your fear whilst trying to beat mine. You calling me princess is already helping beat it. And I’m happy when you tell me Jesus will watch over me. I want to believe it. Sooner or later though everything passes. I guarantee it, I promise you. I will give you back your smile after the sadness. The storm has arrived, but when it passes we’ll have a lighter step, we will go forward stronger, more knowledgeable. We won’t fall again. I promise you dad.

  My roommate is sleeping deeply. She is snoring loudly, making a great noise almost like a tractor. It’s some kind of miracle I’m able to sleep with her in the room next to me. She had an operation a couple of days ago and they’ll discharge her soon. She is sleeping soundly now, and that’s why I don’t say anything when she transforms into farm machinery at night. She deserves it in the end. Her fear was not being able to see her grandchildren again. When I met her a couple of days ago she said to me ‘You know, I’m a grandmother to two beautiful children. They are the light of my life and when I found out what I had, my first thought was them. Then depression, the terror. Then I began to pray’. Fabiola, that’s her name, never calls her illness by its name. As if that stops it being real. As though by not naming it she denies it the right to come up unexpectedly and crowd her head. A kind of defence mechanism. A survival choice. ‘My grandchildren are like my children twice over. I love them too much to leave them alone.’ She smiled a sad smile because problems exist, even when you don’t name them.

  There’s a moment in everyone’s life when you ask yourself why?. Everyone sooner or later questions their existence out loud, trying to understand the reason why we were chosen for a certain path. A quote from one of my favourite films says ‘Nobody is given anything they can’t deal with’. Sure it might be true. But I believe it’s something a bit less concrete than that, something more intimately tied to fate. I believe that every life is already written in a book we can read only once our fates have become real, and that we are only pawns who move each day on this earth looking to the sky for answers. But maybe, sometimes, the answer to all those questions ‘why’ is more simple than we think.

  Simply ‘it had to be like this’. Maybe to some this could seem an answer too simplistic or superficial, but what purpose does it serve to give meaning to the unfathomable? Here inside the hospital walls, almost everyone has asked themselves this question. Many have definitely stopped questioning themselves. They’re already past the punching the wall phase, screaming and crying desperately. They have already suffered quite a few sleepless nights, of internet research, of pats on the back by well-meaning friends. And now they are fighting with clenched teeth, because the reason you are at war is not important. It is only important to that you are at war, to roll up your sleeves and throw yourself into the most courageous void of your life. Without knowing if you will drown or if and when you will float. It’s a risk that should be run though. Because no one gives you back that time spent crying when you realise you are the chosen one. Every second counts, every moment is precious in order to be able to anticipate your next move and try to win. There are other tactics than running fast and having the courage to run as far as possible without pausing for breath. Never giving up.

  It happened a few days ago. One February afternoon in my 21st year. I was coming back from university. Mum peeked her head out the door ‘I’ve got something I have to tell you’.

  My mum is a strong woman. Maybe the strongest woman I know, to the point where she often gives me the impression of being indestructible. She faces problems head-on with a clear, rational mind, and she always manages to find a solution for every issue. She manages to analyse the obstacle and get past it. My girlfriends say I resemble her, that I have an adult brain and that I’m the strongest of them all. I don’t know if that’s true, even though I hope it is with all of my being.

  That time though, her voice broke with emotion. Her eyes told me what she couldn’t. She grasped my hand closing hers around mine. She held on tightly, intertwining her fingers with mine. Then she hugged me and with all the calmness she could muster she said ‘Everything will be alright darling’. She knew that I had already realised what she was talking about. It has always been like that between us, we are able to read each other.

  Some days earlier a scan on my neck in the subtle light of the hospital clinic. A needle was enough to take a cell sample. To penetrate my tissue, push deep down and re-emerge with a small piece of me. It all happened in silence, without a breath. In the silence of those who knew already how to read the monitor of that ultrasound.

  ‘Sit up a bit Sara, now turn your head to the right’. And again the scan moves from one side to the other. I didn’t know what to make of the images on the screen, I didn’t know what was written on what was essentially a photograph of my neck. But if there was one thing I knew how to do well, very well, it was to read looks. And that doctor had two eyes that were screaming.

  I cried with all my energy and suddenly, without even realising what I was doing, I found the courage to ask my mother ‘What do I have?’ I made both myself and her listen to, and have to say, something unpronounceable. How does a mother tell her daughter that she is sick? Which are the right words, the right tone of voice? So she put the evidenc
e in front of me, she showed me a piece of paper. Black and white, the professor ruled on my state of health. Black and white, the ink that destroyed my carefree existence. Black and white, the illness that took the place of smiles. ‘Thyroid carcinoma’ was written there. Loud and clear. Words that didn’t leave any room for interpretation. I needed an operation. Me, who until a short time ago didn’t even know what the thyroid was. I didn’t know it was an organ so delicate, shaped like a butterfly that the ancient Romans called the shield. I didn’t know that, in some kind of irony, I would be fighting a war and someone had taken my shield. I didn’t know anything and all this seemed to me an injustice. An injustice called cancer. No half words. Without lots of other words because one, the strongest of all, silences all others. I knew the pain of those letters put together in a horrible way. I looked fear in the face and saw what it was made of. It appeared before me, strong, stronger than any other thing, dark, rough, undefined.

  I was entering a new chapter of my life that I would never have expected. I went forth with the worry of one who doesn’t know what will happen, on tip toe so as to not attract too much attention. I went with tears and put aside happiness as if to say ‘I’ll see you again one day’. I went with the silence of those nights spent under the covers crying. I pulled up the quilt, warm and soft, as though it could defend me from the bad thing that had happened to me. Like when I was young and I woke from a nightmare peeking above the covers to make sure the bad witch wasn’t in my room.

  From that moment, 48 hours precisely in which my view of the world, my priorities, my goals were completely turned upside down. Diagnosis, procedure, type of tumour, stage of tumour, they were new words that I had come into contact with but had never heard before. When I opened my hand again that day I found a heart-shaped chocolate there. Red, small, guarded jealously by my mum until I got home. That was her way, soft, subtle, pure, innocent, to reconfirm her presence in my life. That was the most precious I had ever received. Unwrapping that chocolate I would find all her love.

  On the ward I was the youngest patient. And yet, regardless of age we are all the same. All soldiers ready to go and win the battle. Everyone dressed in the war uniform: pyjamas. Instead of boots we wear slippers. Our strongest weapon we carry inside of us. And we smile, or at least we try, to those caring for us. Often the hospital becomes a place of communal hope, of thinking out loud. Often a place of profound pain becomes a place where you learn, where you discover something never seen or heard before.

  My favourite companion on this journey is called Lorena and has a boyfriend she dreams of marrying. Outside of this place she has an excellent sandwich shop and promised me that, one day, after this experience is over, we’ll go together to eat the best sandwiches in all of Rome. Because plans should always be made, then who cares if they’re kept or not. Dreams should always be looked after and desires always voiced. It doesn’t cost much.

  And then there’s Audrey, a 50 year-old American woman. She is strong. She spends her days in bed watching the drip and every now and again that half-Italian, half-American accent says to me ‘time stands still in here!’. ‘Audrey’, I respond, ‘try and get up, fight, go for a walk on the ward. Even just two or three times up and down the corridor. The hands on the clock will always run at the same speed, but at least everything will seem easier’. ‘I can’t do it Sara. I’m tired’. When I look at her my heart clenches. She has red hair and pale skin. She came to hospital a month ago. She told me she turned up all made up, with nice shoes and a beautiful coat. She told me that she came in with high hopes and determination. To see her now I ask myself what happened to that Audrey of 30 days ago.

  Angela meanwhile was operated on for breast cancer. She tells me she comes from the South, where the hospitals are often less efficient than the Centre-north. So because of this she was willing to travel many kilometres to be operated on by the best surgeon. She is almost 70 years old. She packed her bags and equipped with courage and patience she said to her family ‘I only have one life to life. I want to live it. I’m going to Rome to get better.’

  Piero is the nicest man on the whole ward. Around 60ish, not very tall, no hair. Two eyes that convey goodness.

  How can I not mention Melania? She is obsessed with cleanliness and every time she moves in her room she disinfects everything before touching anything. She is obsessed with the germs and bacteria found in hospitals. She has a huge suitcase in her wardrobe where she has maybe ten sets of pyjamas and lots of dressing-gowns. Mine is smaller. I wanted to be optimistic and think that my stay would be short. Suitcases for hospital shouldn’t exist. Suitcases are for dreaming, for leaving, for travelling, for growing, for learning, for discovering, for bringing home corners of the world and undiscovered skies. Not for hospital. When I go back home and the time comes to unpack this suitcase, I won’t be the same. At the bottom of every bag packed and unpacked there is a bit of us that leaves, a bit that stays. A bit of us that changes.

  In the mornings Luca brought us all breakfast. A man around forty, die-hard Lazio fan and lover of Tiziano Ferro. This morning he left my tea and biscuits on the table and said to me in his Roman dialect ‘Sara come ‘ere. Listen to what I’ve got for yer’. I got closer, smiling, he is always able to make me laugh. ‘What yer got for me Luca?’ I respond, imitating him. He puts the headphones to his iPod in my ears and a Tiziano Ferro song begins.

  I deny the worst memories, remember the best thoughts, I would like you to remember that through all the worst fights the sun... exists for everyone!

  ‘This is for you right? Come on kid!’. I look at him with shining eyes and think that he is an angel among many in this place. With small gestures, spontaneous and sincere, he is able to give me moments of pure happiness. There are many people in my life who have dedicated words of a song to me, but this, dedicated like this, without malice or ulterior motives, without impositions or because he should have, is the best of them all. ‘Thank you Luca, I really like this song!’. ‘Well then when yer get out of here, yer can come to the club where I play piano bar and I’ll play it for yer! It’s at Fregene, I’m counting on it!’. It makes me laugh so much, the way he is so thoroughly Roman, authentic and genuine.

  When I don’t have blood tests or appointments, I love being with my friends and mum and dad outside the ward. Every time I open the door to go out and ‘detox’ a bit, I find them out there, sat on the seats in the waiting room, lined up and ready to help me pass some carefree time. I feel at home when I see their faces, as if reminding me that there is a world out there that exists. It’s lovely and it’s waiting for me. ‘Sara!’ as soon as they see me, my old friends Bea, Francy and Eleonora run to hug me. ‘Look what we brought you!’. They load me up again with presents. ‘This is the custard tart that you really like!’ ‘This is a baby tiger, as strong as you!’ says Bea handing me the softest toy. ‘I brought you a mascara and lip gloss so when you go home we can get dressed up and go out for a great night!’ says Francy with enthusiasm. Giuseppe and Federico come to see me too and we spend the afternoon together, joking and laughing. Someone tells me all the gossip about people we know, someone else tells me about all the shopping they’ve done. Someone shows me their newest photos on their phone... Basically they are my source of outside information but not just that. They are much more than that. To them I owe most of those carefree afternoons. They made me laugh honestly and sincerely. When we are together, I look at mum and dad, a constant and quiet presence, able to give me space with my friends and I see them happy and thankful to each of them for what they are doing for me. That is a great and invaluable gift.

  ‘A mother, a lover, a daughter, a commitment, once a dark cloud’. This is what Jovanotti sings. And this has become the song that connects me to my mother. I don’t remember the precise moment we decided it was our song. Maybe that time in the car, going to the big hospital, we listened to it turned up loud, singing it at the top of our lungs. With the stereo so loud that it masked our off-key voices.
Tonight mum added a bit to that verse. Improvising as a DJ and writer at the same time, when I got back to my bed I found the words of Jovanotti with an addendum written in pen. ‘and then the sun, and lots of love’. She wrote it for me like that, on a piece of paper. Leaving me her sun and her love on the table in the room. This room, to which I return every time they leave when visiting hours finish, in this big hospital that’s become my home in some small way. Words that give me hope and let me dream of the end, the point of this journey. That in the end isn’t so bad. My relationships, the real ones, are becoming stronger. And you realise the depth of relationships and recognise the important things and those which don’t matter. You understand what is actually important. Illness forces you to make a sort of list of priorities, which you would never do if you were in full health. Right or wrong, those who are sick have the privilege of understanding the sense of life. A mocking destiny maybe, because you are forced to realise what’s important when it is slipping out of your hands. When you are afraid of not being able to touch it, feel or see it, smell it or breathe it. When you risk losing everything is the moment you realise what really matters.

  I’m squatting with my knees to my chest and music in my ear in the chairs outside the ward. In front of my world of sick adults is the world for those smaller people. But not the newborns just arrived, no. That is the saddest corner of the hospital. The tenth floor, where I am, is an evil place that is fighting with life. It’s the place where the children with cancer are. How horrible that phrase sounds. Children with cancer. Children born not long ago, they can’t risk vanishing. In this hospital they are protected by a door that rarely opens. Yet it is the most beautiful door of all. It is coloured and they’ve drawn a big tree on it with birds that fly freely through the sky and lots of colourful flowers in the fields. It’s the subtle balance between life and death. Outside the door you are safe. Inside you face the risk. While I am watching it, the lift opens right in front of me. A small bed pushed by the strong and willing arm of a porter. A white blanket. Pain imprinted on the face of the young mother. A forced smile. And then a small head that pokes out from the covers. A child of three or four years. No hair. A little hand peeking out from the darkness of the covers to seek some light, to hold on to the bigger, reassuring hand of the mother. To hold on to life. ‘It will be fine’ she says, while that little man imprisons his finger amongst the five fingers. The voice is reassuring but it is the voice that feels the greatest pain of all. The pain that no parent should feel. The excruciating pain of a fight against an illness that eats away at life. But in that holding of the hand, in that unbreakable bond between mother and son, there is no space for fear. There the illness can’t reach. It goes beyond everything. Beyond life, beyond death. Beyond any other type of love. That is the meeting of two bodies that at one time were actually truly one body. It’s powerful, able to eclipse any other thing that tries to hinder that young path. And so that coloured door opens and, accompanied by the porter, they delve back into their corner of the world, full of pain.