Remembrance and Our Shared Humanity

The work continues.

This week is tough for all Americans, I think—the remembrance of 9/11 is seared into our collective consciousness, although with each passing year the horror of that day becomes a thing of the past to a new generation while remaining a blistering wound on those of us who remember every single detail of that awful, blue sky and sunshine September morning.

I know I have written about this before—but especially now, especially when truth and facts seem to be turning into Colbert-esque “truthiness” and fluid fictions to serve selfish ends, remembrance remains critically important. 

To see the Colbert explanation of Truthiness, click here --interesting that this is from 12 years ago!

Remembrance as a practice should be cultivated—not only to honor those we’ve lost in any tragedy—but to learn from those experiences, to accurately assess the “why?” of things, or at least the “what now?”  Sometimes there is no why. Certainly in all the awareness posts and remembrances of childhood cancer awareness month, those posts that shine gold across my Facebook feed, there is no WHY? – everything is WHAT NOW?  What can we do to FIX THIS?? What resources can we muster to find cures, to support survivors, to ease the pain of families who have lost children? And then I remember all the generosity and love directed towards our family when G was so sick in 2004-2006 and again 2011-2013. I remember all the folks who were not put off by my crabby cactus persona, but who loved us nonetheless.

Ha, Thursday. Got it to load.

Remembrance feeds hope and the connection that we need to live fully.

Remembering 9/11 hurts. Everything about that remembrance is painful. Hearing the names of those lost, 17 years now after that horrible day, still leaves a hollowness in my heart.  And yet I have seen on social media the remembrance of 9/12, the unity that came after the attacks. I remember going to my local church—not even my parish at the time (it is now) – that evening of 9/11 in an impromptu prayer service, the church was packed, the energy of grief, of shared sorrow and solidarity rose and fell in waves throughout the service. That remembrance is important, too. In our fractured society today—we need to remember that we CAN stand together. We can be united.

Remembrance always exists in a particular context; my remembrance of an event may differ from someone else’s, which does not make either of us necessarily inaccurate (this is why primary sources have to be corroborated).  Still, at the heart of remembrance is a tacit acknowledgement of our shared humanity—whether that be in the pain we feel remembering those children stolen by cancer, or the pain at the horror, death, and fear of 9/11, or the pain of being bullied as a child, or the joy of eating Grandma’s cucumber salad or the joy of coming in 5^th place in a race way back in 7^th grade even though you are the world’s most un-athletic person, and getting a t-shirt which you saved forever…all remembrances connect to our humanity. That is why remembrance is so powerful, and so important. 

yes, I still have the t-shirt. I just don't have the energy to take it out of the cedar chest, take a picture, try to upload a picture. It' s light blue t-shirt from 1983, believe me, it is AWESOME. It is actually pretty much the color of this page...hmmm...
Let's just say that "All I do is win win win no matter what!" was NOT so much the theme song of my childhood athletic endeavors.

Sometimes remembering weighs me down. Sometimes my DO THE THINGS are fueled by remembrance—sometimes my Lie on Floor and Do Zero Things is likewise driven by remembrance that I need to sit with for a while. Connection with our shared humanity through remembrance is not always a rainbow and unicorns kind of fest; it is a work, a work that continues. I am all for moving right along—but sometimes, some days, I know the greatest work I can do is to stop and remember.

Taking Back the Day

I had a radical idea yesterday morning, during one of the 57 drives I do each week.

I can take back April 5. 

Take. It. Back.

In our family story, April 5 stands as one of the Quadrangle of Worst Days Ever that we had (right up there with Diagnosis Day and Possible Malignant Transformation Day, nearly tied with Progression After 5 Years Off Treatment Day…). The day haunts me.  And Facebook keeps helpfully reminding me of how nervous we were before April 5, 2012,  how desperately sort of hopeful we were, even though we knew G didn’t seem to be doing well.

5 years ago, April 5’s MRI obliterated our hope.

I know. That’s a long time ago.

Here is the problem: I am a History teacher. Remembering the past is my JOB. Literally I get dollars to dissect the past with nearly 70 students each day.  The great irony of what prolonged stress does to memory is not lost on me.  Thank God for Post-It notes. But the varied dates of medical smite that fill a decade and more of our family history—I can’t shake those memories, and trying to understand them, trying to gain some kind of perspective is the only way I know HOW to manage them.

Or denial/avoidance, but that is another story.

Our neuro-oncologist used to routinely ask me to “tell our story” to new medical students, knowing that it was my weird party trick, being able to recite a litany of dates/chemo fails/statistically improbable complications/more dates/random sarcastic jokes/things that only happened to our G/dates and dates. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but the medical yikes—I remember.

So my drive time idea was pretty radical.

Take back the day.

Some days can’t be taken back. Diagnosis day is always going to be tough, it’s the center of our personal timeline of Before Tumors and After Tumors (we are now in the Year After Tumors 12.5). We remember it as a survivorversary, but it’s still a tough one to navigate each year. Progression Day is also tough. Restarting EVERYTHING with a teen who could understand things much more than a 6 year old could was brutal—especially since I had to be the one to tell her that we had to start up chemo again, after brain surgery the next day. I am not sure I know how to reframe that memory of the moment with my child in a waiting room.

But April 5—I can take that day back.

Because yes—it was horrible. It was a dark, miserable, son of an unprintable punctuation marks in a row kind of day. It was a day ONLY describable in 4 letter words that need to be spat out. BUT…

Today it doesn’t matter.

Unless docs talk about that trial in what seems to me to be a cavalier manner (*cough, which never, ever ends well), it doesn’t matter to our family.

Because 5 years later, G’s tumors look better than they have in years. Not that tumors really ever look good (“spring ’17, the tumors are wearing a subdued palette of less enhancement and maybe even slightly less mass effect! Stunning Detail!”)—but the horror of that day IS a memory. The next chemo shrunk that horrible, catastrophic growth. Nothing has been easy since then—G’s school challenges and ruptured appendix and whooping cough fest were all AFTER this day—but WE ARE STILL IN THE GAME.

And that merits taking back the day.

I am not exactly sure how to do it. Wednesday is our “nobody home for dinner” day, and somehow in my mind taking back a day always involves food. But even if I just try to remind myself all the day, Hey, WE ARE STILL IN THE GAME. G IS DOING GREAT. CADBURY IS IN THE CLOSET. WE HAVE A DOG. IT’S SPRING. I JUST GOT A SWEATSHIRT WITH HAPPY BIRDS ON IT. Pretty much anything to stay in the moment of today…

I consider that a win.

So we’ll see how it goes, this radical experiment of mine. Can I NOT wallow? Will I eat my 3^rd bag of Cadbury? Does anyone else in my family even remember the day? Does that even matter?

But come hell or high water, I am going to try to take back April 5, to have it just be a springy day of promise and potential. And Cadbury, likely.

Taking back the day.

Let’s do it.

*****************

So I wrote this last night.

I woke up this morning. Birds are singing. Dog pooped right away (without needing to sniffle every blade of grass on our street).  I only had to yell at 3^rd born three times to get her out the door for school.

And you know what I realized? I am the only one here bound by that day. Nobody else in the house remembers. And as I walked the dog, and felt some of the old erghleyugh rising up, I looked at the trees, the birds, the spring flowers starting to bloom, and I know that old April 5 is just that. Old.

And FB reminded me this morning…yes, that day was awful. BUT—the rememberings are all posts by our friends and family who were hurting FOR us, praying for us, rallying hope and good will in our direction—usually marked with pictures of my smiling warrior.  THAT is what today needs to be about. I know those folks will likely all get reminded about this today too—

hey everyone. this is Kristin's sister Laura posting this for her: G's scan was not good... Thank you everyone for praying. We are going to Plan B and G is actually taking it remarkably well...we are trying to be super positive for her.

Thank you, friends and family.  We love you all so much.

Today I WILL let myself off my Lenten car silence thing –there will be music. I will eat Cadbury. I will take this day back as the day our friends and family stood with us and held us up when we were falling.

We’ve had 5 April 5ths since that bad one. I claim those as a win.

NOW let’s break out some Cadbury and some Safety Dance and get this day going.