As July has come again, every day I have awoken to reminder of what was now still is. The hot weather's dampness feels the same to me as it was a year ago. The sunlight in all its brightness reflects back memories of last year's diagnosis of cancer. I try to run but daytime hours stretch longer into night exposing me again to fear and anxiety. I am haunted by shadows of a summer past.
Thirty years ago my mom died of cancer. It was in the heat of summer she said her good-bye. I remember that year spending a week with my eight cousins up north. It was July. It was hot. Horse flies buzzed around us as we swam in Lake Margaret. The woods were green and swollen with humidity. I caught crappies and sunfish off the dock. My aunt instructed in me in the fine art of meal making as I would need some skills for the days ahead. I was eleven and soon to be the woman of the household.
I remember sleeping in a packed cabin and using an outhouse for the first time. I remember my aunt's kindness as I requested a certain type of buffered aspirin that was the one my mom gave to me. I remember sitting outside and eating and the beauty of the place and the confusion of being part of such a big crew of kids. The silence of sadness permeated the week as love was extended.
The air on my skin feels the same today as it did then.
Yesterday I found out I needed to change doctors because of a failure of my current clinic to negotiate a contract with our insurance carrier. As I frantically searched the internet for another oncologist, I quickly crossed out different hospitals in my mind that I never wanted to be in.
"Nope not that one. So and so died there."
"Not that one either. So and so died there."
My list got shorter and shorter until one hospital emerged.
"Okay this one. I have never been with anyone who has died there."
As I moved toward making my first appointment with a new oncologist associated with the hospital of my choosing, my heart stopped. This is the hospital where my mom died. Damn.
My insurance coverage ends July 31st. She died August 3rd.
Oh God redeem the memory. Oh God have mercy. This wound is way too deep to hold alone.
July's heat seems unbearable this year.
