by Laura Roppé
Then something in the way he looked at me, just for an instant, caused me to realize he was flirting with me. But that was impossible.
“Thank you,” I replied to his compliment, increasingly wary.
“Yeah, I saw it from across the parking lot, and I just wanted to tell you that.”
“Thanks,” I said again. Was there a point to this conversation? I was just so damned tired. I started to walk away. “Have a great day.”
“So, um,” he continued, stopping me dead in my tracks—and by that I mean he caused me to stop walking, just to be clear (a little more cancer humor for you)—“can I get your phone number?” he continued. “Maybe we could go out sometime?”
Long, awkward pause. I looked at him as if he had feet for hands.
Finally, my voice came: “Wow, thank you. That’s sweet. But, I’m . . . ”—bald underneath this headscarf, you dumbass—“married.”
And then I ripped off my head scarf, leaped at him like a mountain lion on a jogger, and shouted, “How ya like me now, sucka!”
No, I didn’t. But I wanted to.
Could he really have no idea he was talking to a just-about-to-crumple-to-the-ground-without-an-ounce-of-energy-left-in-her-sad- sack-body cancer patient? If so, he was the stupidest man alive. Or, alternatively, had this gentleman knowingly hit on such a pitiful creature? If so, he was a saint . . . or a total perv.
Ogled, I reminded myself. It’s always better to be ogled than “ma’am-ed.” And yet in this instance, I thought in a flash, I think I’d rather be “ma’am-ed.”
Of course, Brad and the girls ignored my container, too. Despite my shocking physical transformation over the past several months, they still, thankfully, saw just me. Wife. Mommy. Me.
Indeed, Brad continued to tease me as mercilessly as he had before cancer, displaying absolutely no regard for the inspirational, saintly creature I had become.
“Hey, Elmer Fudd,” he said to me at the dinner table one night, “pass the butter.”
“Hellooo,” I responded, “you’re not supposed to tease me, Buddy. I have cancer, you know.” I made the universal “duh” gesture with both hands.
“Babe, if I stop teasing you, then cancer will have won,” he retorted.
And he was right.
Damn. I hated it when Brad was right.
I walked Buster along a dirt trail by my house. The poor dog was becoming a bit rotund after spending so much time lounging in bed with me. I let him off-leash, and he immediately darted ahead to chase a bunny (or perhaps a leaf), but then rocketed right back to my side with (what I imagined to be) a gleeful woohoo! He repeated this dance over and over again.
In the third round of this game, when Buster looked up at me with his woohoo! expression, it hit me: Buster didn’t see my physical appearance. He just saw me. I got that electric-current feeling that comes to me on occasion. My identity has nothing to do with my physicality, I thought. I am not my container.
Indeed, my whole life, this lesson had followed me around, poking me on the shoulder, urging me to listen. Back when I was thirteen years old, after arriving home from my preppy private school and throwing my backpack onto the floor, I changed from my good-girl clothes into a black shirt and leggings, wrapped a metal-studded belt around my hips (tiny as they were at the time), and smeared black lipstick on my lips. And then, with great care, I teased and shellacked my thick hair straight up into a “fauxhawk.”
I assessed myself in the mirror: I was the Misunderstood Outsider—the prototype for Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, a year before that movie existed. And then, in this getup, at precisely three o’clock in the afternoon, I embarked on the fifteen-minute walk up the hill, past the nearby junior high school, purportedly for an ice cream cone at Thrifty.
At ten past three o’clock on the dot, as planned, I passed the junior high school, just as the end-of-day bell sounded. As a swarm of kids leaving campus passed by, two or three of them heckled me: “Loser! . . . Hey, ugly! Go home!”
I kept walking past, glaring in seemingly angry defiance of my detractors.
All I want is an ice cream cone! I am not an animal!
But my angry glare was as much performance art as my hair. Really, I was amused and fascinated, much like an animal behaviorist studying an animated clan of orangutans. It tickled me to know that this outsider girl with the outrageous hair and black lipstick, the girl mocked as a “loser” by the “cool” kids, was actually a straight-A student from a preppy private school.
The next day, I followed my Ally Sheedy walk of shame with a second trek, dressed in my usual “honor student” clothes. This time when I walked past the school at the sound of the bell, boys drunk on their own newly awakened testosterone greeted me with smiles and flirtatious hellos.
Dummies, I thought. I’m the same girl who came through here yesterday looking like Elvira. It was the first time I distinctly thought, Don’t judge a book by its cover.
And now, over twenty years later, I stood naked in front of my bathroom mirror, staring at my chemo-ravaged body, and the disconnect between my insides and outsides had never been more jarring: In this condition, my outsides, my container, actually looked a helluva lot like a Playboy Bunny—at least from the neck down. Since I’d lost so much weight, my fake boobs, initially sized for a bigger frame, were now disproportionately large and my hips had vanished. And, to top off this centerfold illusion, I was hairless. Everywhere. It looked like I’d had the world’s most immaculate Brazilian wax. The image was unmistakable: I was a centerfold.
But how could this be? I was battling cancer, for Pete’s sake. This “perfect” body was pickled in poisons! And yet wasn’t this the very look American women were starving themselves to achieve? Here I was, finally looking like Pamela Anderson for the first time in my life, achieved as a by-product of being infused with the most toxic chemicals known to modern medicine!
And then here was the kicker, the coup de grace, the giveaway that all was not as it seemed: When I looked at myself from the neck up, I was a bald Bride of Chucky, a sunken-eyed zombie in search of brains to eat. I’d never looked worse in my entire life.
I had to laugh.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, Laura.
It was an indisputable, hit-me-over-the-head life lesson in how little the physical body reflects the inner soul.
I am not my container.
Chapter 39
I was a hamster on a Thursday wheel. Every other Thursday was Chemo Time, and the “off” Thursdays in between set off a countdown for the next Thursday’s dreaded infusion. Each week was blending into the next, and I was starting to forget who I’d been before this nightmare had started.
But then, on the “off” Thursday following my sixth chemo, just as I was emerging from yet another week from hell, Little Tommy from the Jeff & Jer radio show—the popular San Diego show that had first aired “Float Away” six months earlier—reached out his hand and pulled me off the wheel.
“Do you feel well enough to come down to the studio tomorrow to update our listeners about you?” he asked.
Does Dorothy wear ruby slippers?
As it turned out, I’d remained somewhat of a listener favorite since that first avalanche of positive response, and Jeff and Jer had continued to update their audience on the twists and turns of my life. A few months earlier, I’d told their listeners about my then-recent diagnosis and upcoming treatment in an on-air telephone interview. It had been October—Breast Cancer Awareness Month—so I’d described in detail how I’d discovered the lump on my own.
“The mammogram came back as normal,” I had warned. “Make sure you ladies do your self-examination.”
Upon learning of my illness back then, fans of the Jeff & Jer show had inundated me with emails of well wishes and prayers.
And so when Little Tommy called right after my sixth chemo infusion to invite me down to the studio, I didn’t hesitate.
Brad drove me to Jeff and Jer’s studio at Clear Channe
l Radio—a behemoth radio conglomerate that blasts radio shows to the masses all over the country.
“Babe, I’ll be fine,” I told him. “You don’t have to drive me.”
“Nah, I’m coming,” Brad declared. “You might be too wiped out afterward to drive, and I want to be on the safe side.” And, of course, I knew, he didn’t want to miss this exciting experience.
I was thrilled he was coming.
When we arrived at the studio building, Little Tommy welcomed us with big hugs in the hallway outside the studio. After a moment, when the show had broken for a commercial, Tommy led me into the studio, leaving Brad to watch the excitement through the window in the producer’s booth.
The show’s stars greeted me warmly as I put my big black headphones on over my head scarf. After a quick commercial break, we were live on-air (or “in the air,” as Jeff and Jer liked to say).
First things first: Jeff played “Float Away” and another song of mine, “Sing a Love Song”—it never got old hearing my songs on the radio!—and I chatted with the show’s hosts about the upcoming release of my music in the UK.
“When I’m all done with my treatment, I’m gonna go to England to shoot a music video!” I gushed. I sounded like a wallflower who’s just been asked to dance by the captain of the football team—definitely not “acting like ya been there before.” But I didn’t care if my euphoria was over the top—they had given me the gift of feeling like my old self again, and it was exhilarating.
When Jeff asked me how I was holding up through treatment, I assured everyone I was staying positive, and they were happy to hear it.
“You’re an inspiration,” they said.
I didn’t feel like an inspiration, though. In fact, I felt unabashedly selfish, reveling in self-centered glee at the chance to feel like myself again. If only for a day.
A few days after the radio interview, I was standing in line at Costco to buy snacks for Chloe’s T-ball team. When I handed my membership card to the cashier and she saw my name printed at the bottom, she jerked her head up and gasped, “You’re Laura Roppé? I love your music! I listen to you on Jeff & Jer all the time!” And then she craned her head around me to peer down the line of waiting customers and yelled, “Do you all know who this is!? This is Laura Roppé!”
The cashier then came around to my side of the conveyor belt and gave me an enthusiastic hug.
“I’m a five-year breast cancer survivor,” she whispered in my ear, squeezing me for extra emphasis. “You’re gonna get through this. Hold on for one more day, honey. Hold on for one more day.”
As tears of gratitude filled my eyes, I squeezed her right back.
Chapter 40
Dear Laura,
Mine and Adam’s marriage is over. It’s been coming awhile. Things weren’t great before I found out I had cancer, but I was just coasting along, as you do, and thinking that it wasn’t good but it was tolerable, and potentially better than the alternative—i.e., having to start over again on my own. However, what the cancer has done was to make me realise that life is just way too short and that I don’t want to not be happy. Love, Jane xx
My Dearest Jane,
Big news, girlfriend. But I am not surprised at how cancer gives a person clarity coupled with unparalleled ability to act on it. Just as you’ve had an epiphany about your feelings for Adam, I’ve had my own: I cannot live without Brad. I want to grow old with him. I can understand completely if cancer doesn’t cause that reaction how starkly you must feel that. It has been thrilling for me to realize that the only changes I want to make through all this are: (1) pursue music in earnest, and (2) never, ever practice another day of law in my life. So, really, I’ve done the same thing you’ve done, just in another context. I am here for you, come what may. I am just wishing you a full and happy life.
XOXOXO Laura
Dear Laura,
I love that you get what’s going on in my life. Up to now, you’re the only one who does. Everyone else thinks the cancer has “caused” the decision. But it hasn’t; it’s just acted as an enabler to facilitate my choices. It’s not because of the cancer that I have made the choice I have. It’s because of the cancer that I can’t not act on how I feel.
Jane xx
And the truth was, though I worried for Jane and felt sorry for Adam’s heartbreak, I did understand. It might have seemed shocking for a woman to leave her husband while in the midst of cancer treatments, but I understood that Jane’s pretenses had melted away and she’d lost the ability to lie to herself. About anything. I felt the same way.
Of course, we’d never had a guarantee of a long life, but we’d previously had the illusion of a guarantee. We’d put money away in our retirement plans for when we turned sixty-five. We’d planned to take a dream vacation—one day—perhaps after the kids had left the house. But now, after having been touched by a potentially deadly disease, our illusions were shattered. No matter how upbeat we remained, no matter how many times we gave two thumbs up in response to someone’s rally cry “Stay positive!”—in the dark recesses of our minds, we could hear the doctor say, “It’s back.” And with that possibility hanging over our heads, the pressing question was: What do I want my life to look like if that day of reckoning comes? I understood that Jane was creating the life she wanted, no matter what the cost.
In my own way, I, too, was making bold decisions about the remainder of my life, no matter how long or short that was.
“When this is over, I can’t go back to practicing law,” I told Brad defiantly. “If I do, I’ll have cancer again within two years.”
Brad looked bewildered. He saw that I wasn’t being hypothetical. And whether my prediction was true or not, it was clear I genuinely believed it.
I had finally embraced a fundamental truth about myself, no matter what the cost: I’m all heart, baby.
Take that, head!
The girls and I lay in bed together, creating our List of Things To Do Together This Summer. We knew that by summertime I would be finished with treatment. I would have hair. And I would be able to spend each and every day with my girlies, unlike in years past, when I had always worked at least several days per workweek. It was uplifting to us all to picture us happily enjoying a summer day together.
“How about a picnic?” Chloe contributed to the list.
“What else?” I prodded.
“The beach,” Chloe said.
“Sea World?” Sophie added.
“That sounds fun!” I exclaimed. “What else?”
Sophie’s body pressed hard against mine. “I don’t care, Mommy. It doesn’t matter what we do.”
My babies don’t need Fun Mommy, I realized. They just need Mommy. I kissed my girlies good night and went to rest in my own bed.
As I drifted off to sleep, I vowed for the hundredth time to fight this beast as hard as I could. For my girls.
Although I have two daughters, I like to say I have “one of each.” Sophie is Brad’s “mini-me.” She looks just like pictures of Brad as a child—except for the nose. I don’t know where Sophie got her nose. It’s elegantly shaped and covered with lovely little freckles.
“If I had your nose,” I always tell Sophie, “I could conquer the world.”
Sophie is sometimes painfully shy with new people and in new situations. She’s a planner. She doesn’t like change. While she eats lunch, she asks what’s for dinner. She just likes to know what’s coming up next.
Sophie makes you earn her love. Whew, that girl’s a tough sell. But once it’s earned, her love is yours for life. When her best friend ran for the student council in fourth grade, Sophie was ecstatic to serve as her campaign manager. She couldn’t have worked any harder on the campaign if she herself had been vying for office. And when her little friend won, Sophie rejoiced.
Sophie’s moral compass points steadfastly true north, always. She cannot fathom injustice. She cannot fathom cruelty. She sees only the good, because she doesn’t know anything else exists.
> Her moral compass points true north
She’s fearless though she’s scared to death
She makes you earn it, it’s worth the wait
She’d never hurt a fly
If I had her heart, the world would be mine,
Who could resist this valentine?
If I had her nose, I could conquer the world
Little freckles, oh so loverly
She’s my girl
At the beginning of chemo, I assured Sophie that, thanks to our new baby sitter, her routine wouldn’t change at all. “In fact, it might be kind of fun to have someone to play with you all the time, unlike your boring old mom, who’s always gotta make dinner or something,” I coaxed.
“But I won’t be with you, Mommy,” Sophie said. “I’d rather be with you at home than go to Disneyland with a baby sitter.”
Oh, Sophie.
And then there’s Chloe, age seven. My “mini-me.” The anti-Sophie.
Chloe belly flops into the pool of life. She doesn’t think about anything but right this very minute. For better and for worse. She has not once in her seven years asked me what’s for dinner. She doesn’t need to know. That’s later, and this is now. As if she’s a yogini in India, she loves to tell Sophie, “Just be in the moment.”
In direct contrast with Sophie, Chloe throws her love around like confetti on New Year’s Eve. She throws it up, up, up and away!—and then lets it shimmer down, down, down, dispersing everywhere. She never worries where it might land or that she might run out of it. And, of course, she never runs out. Chloe might be in love with a particular boy today (and she is always googly-eyed over someone), but tomorrow she will find a new love.