THE INVINCIBLE
SUMMER
by
Margaret Lang
“In the depth of
winter, I finally learned that there was within
me an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus
“You are in
Stage Four Cancer and you are offering to drive
me around?” Without a car, I knew I needed rides
but not at the cost of someone else’s
discomfort.
With a
quick turn of her head, Suzann tossed her silky
brown shoulder length hair and bangs . . . a
stunning wig . . . and engaged me with a warm
smile. “Jump in, it’s my pleasure.”
In her
bright Capri pants, she pressed the pedal to the
metal, chirping all the while like the finches
she kept at her house. My circle of
acquaintances did not include people with
end-stage cancer so I was at a loss as to what
to say. After a half-dozen stores and sore feet,
I uttered, “Don’t you ever get tired?”
“Cancer
didn’t change my high energy, only my body,” she
replied. “They removed one of my breasts and I
said, ‘Take the other one off, too, to try to
get it all.’ When the cancer recurred in my
bones, the first chemo kept me moving ahead . .
. then I slipped . . . and a second chemo kept
me going further . . . until I slipped again,
and so on.”
“You remind
me of a tight-rope walker able to balance part
way, losing footing now and then, but inching
along undaunted,” I said.
“Yes it has
been a shaky walk but because of it, I have lost
my fear of dying.”
“Even with
all the pricking and poking of hospital
procedures?”
“Yes, even
with all that.”
I didn’t
understand her. She was like an unfinished
crossword puzzle with a few empty squares that
should have been filled with letters like
“a-n-x-i-o-u-s” or “f-e-a-r-f-u-l,” but they
clearly didn’t fit in the spaces.
“I love
driving you, Margie. Can I be your assistant?”
She knew I couldn’t deal with the death issue,
so she focused me on her gifts of life.
“That would
be wonderful,” I replied.
One day
without a cloud in her voice, she shared her
stormy past. “My alcoholic father gave me no
love . . . the father of my girls left me . . .
and my two daughters and I, once the best of
friends, no longer have any contact. Yet the
cancer journey has caused me to have peace about
them all.”
How could suffering cancel out suffering?
I wondered. Shouldn’t it compound and
overwhelm her with grief? I could see that
there was no space for “rejected” and “wounded”
in her life—and she remained a puzzle to me.
Suzann, on
the other hand, had me all figured out. Over a
period of months, she helped me finish projects,
cooked my favorite foods, drove me to the best
clothes shops, and put my feet up on a footstool
when they appeared swollen. She even remained
patient with my mounting stress over my deadline
to go to Africa to help AIDS kids, working twice
as hard to get me ready in time.
Only
occasionally did she say “no” to me, when she
went to work with Hispanic kids from poor
neighborhoods. I went with her once and the kids
buzzed around her like bees on honey. Like those
kids, I, too, had grown to love being around
her. Her sweetness rubbed off on us all.
So I wasn’t
prepared for the bitter in the sweet. I denied
the growing circles under her eyes and her
comment, “I think I’ve run out of chemo
therapies.”
“Oh surely,
there must be a newly developed chemo somewhere
. . . isn’t there?” I begged.
She soothed
me with words of assurance. “Sweet, Margie, it’s
okay. I really must get rid of my birds,
though.”
“Not your
finches, you’ve had birds your whole life.” I
whined.
“I’m not
feeling too well,” she softly confided.
“Dear God,”
I blurted out. “It just has to be a common
cold.”
It was my
chance to nurture her—but how can a blossom
nurture the branch on which it grows? Still, I
knew the branch wanted one small thing from its
little blossom—to see the blossom’s face turn
and smile. Suzann had wanted time alone with me
with no errands to do, just to enjoy my company
at a deeper level—and it hadn’t really happened.
My journey overseas had come upon us too fast.
“I promise
when I come back we’ll do something special
together. I must go now, Suzann. Here’s a hug
and thanks for always being there for me.” As
she waved goodbye, I felt shaken and saw my
blossom fall to the ground, its season over.
Soon the
email came, “Suzann died last Saturday,
peacefully.” What finality, leaving no chance to
bond deeply.
Even
without it, Suzann had gotten to know the real
me, understood my thoughts and tended my cares .
. . whereas I hadn’t gotten to know the real
her. I still didn’t understand her peacefulness
about dying from cancer without her children by
her side, nor the source of her indomitable will
to serve me.
Baffled, I searched for meaning about
“suffering” and found a quote from Fritz
Williams who surely must have had Suzann in
mind. “Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow
them, how to make the leap of empathy, which
transports us into the soul and heart of another
person. In those transparent moments we know
other people’s joys and sorrows, and we care
about their concerns as if they were our own.”
He captured it—Suzann had exchanged her life of
pain for a life of serving others with joy.
In the
depth of her winter, Suzann had found her
invincible summer. I missed her and wanted to
hug her Hispanic kids, to feel her lingering
warmth on them—again . . . and again.
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