The Hardest Word

Written after my beautiful sister-friend died an agonisingly cruel death from lung cancer. Names have been changed to protect my heart...

The phone rang and I said, “That’s Sarah,” and stretched out my hand for the receiver. My son answered it, mumbling and then passed it to me.
“How do you do that?” He said.
“It’s a gift,” I said.

“Hi darl,” I said into the receiver. “How are ya?”
“Not bad,” she said.
“How’re the kids?”
“Hah! You know - teenagers! If they live to be adults…”
We both nearly wet ourselves laughing and then the mood changed suddenly. Her voice came from a long way away, small and quiet and I strained to hear her.
“Can you come over tomorrow?” She whispered. “I had some X-rays taken. I want you to see them.”
“What X-rays?” I queried, concerned.
“Just…please…can you come over tomorrow?”
“Yeah! Sure! I’ll bring lunch,” I said reassuringly.
“Cool, thanks…”she said and then the call degenerated into our usual gossip hour catching up on all the things we’d done since the last time we’d caught up with each other, many years before.

It had always been that way with us. We had met when we were both heavily pregnant. Sarah with her second baby, me with my first. From the start, we had formed a deep and warm friendship. Kindred spirits. Our love of champagne and cigarettes was exceeded only by our love of Led Zeppelin and art. She was a talented weaver and textile artist with no self-esteem and I a painter of great talent and also, no self-esteem. A lifetime of systematic sexual and physical abuse had beaten most of my belief in myself out of me. Sarah lived with a man who denigrated her every chance he could. But still she believed in me and I in her. And it was that belief and our growing babies that led us into a friendship greater than any I had known until then.

As usual with me, I drifted on the tides of abuse and moved many times over the years. I moved away, we grew apart, but whenever Sarah and I met again, there was this wondrous joy of reunion, of never having to say sorry, never having to explain. For both of us, there was an unspoken acceptance of each other that transcended apology. Every now and then, we’d talk; for hours, sometimes for days, about what life was throwing at us and how we were handling it. Much wine was drunk, many tears flowed, but always at the end, there was love and the kind of peace that only real love can bring.

And so our lives wandered through the years until the phone call. Sarah would not have phoned me if it was not important. I shrugged and put the worry to one side - I’d see her tomorrow and find out more then - there was no point in worrying tonight.

When I dropped my teenager off at school the following day I told him I would be late back because I was going to see Sarah. He rolled his eyes back in his head and told me he’d walk home and if I was gonna be later than six that night, to phone him so he could know where I was and so he could get dinner ready. I laughed. He was such a great kid! I kissed him, much to his mortification, and he jumped out of the car and waved me goodbye.

“Bye Mum!” He yelled. “Have a great day and don’t get too drunk!”

I rolled my eyes and waved him off then headed off to Sarah’s, my basket of goodies wafting delicious smells through the interior of the car. I’d made some fresh sourdough bread and had picked up some barramundi pate from the deli. My photo and scrap albums were there too , I’d had two major exhibitions since last time we’d got together and I wanted to let her know just what an inspiration she was to me. Without her support, love and belief I would still have been someone’s punching bag. Someone’s door mat. Not now. Not me.

I drove into her front yard and got out of the car, laughing. Sarah’s house was so obvious to me, no matter where she lived. The weeds, the treasures strewn around the yard. The incomplete mobiles that poked and prodded the land and dangled from the trees. The half dead car in the driveway. I made my way to the front door and knocked, smiling when I saw the wind chime I had made for her birthday decades ago, hanging near the door.

Time passed. I frowned and knocked again. Louder. When I saw her shape finally shuffle to the door, I wiped the frown from my face to show my excitement at seeing her again. It had been too long, this time. The door cracked open and I just stood there, looking at her looking back at me. It was as though the world stopped right then. Not a breath of wind moved in the trees. Not one bird spoke. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even move. The spell broke when she smiled at me, that drop dead gorgeous 100 watter that melted me every time.

“Well? You gonna stand there all day? Or are ya gonna come in?”
I put down the basket full of offerings and put out my arms and she moved into them. Sarah was much shorter than me and slim with it. I’d always felt like the big mama, the elephant. Now I felt like a mountain. As I hugged her fragile, bony body to mine, I tried desperately to wipe the look of horror from my face and eyes.

“You been dieting, woman?” I said.
“Nope. Just gone vegan for a while. Come in. It’s so good to see you! What have you brought me? Mmmmmm! It smells good! What have you been doing? How’s the car going? Are you still with that man? ”
“Sarah! Has the Goddess of small talk and inconsequential chit chat got your tongue? Lead on!” I laughed.
We went down the hallway into the usual incredibly messy kitchen and sat at the incredibly messy dining room table.
“Tea?” she asked.
“Earl Grey”, I replied and then looked around me.
“Kitchen Fairy still away on holidays then?” I asked.
“Kids killed her.” She replied.
“Speaking of your little treasures…”
“Well…Janie is 14 and thinks she’s going on eighteen! Zack is sixteen but thinks he’s twelve… One of these days, they’ll have kids of their own and this grandma will be on a beach somewhere out of mobile phone range!”
We both laughed.

“How’s Jake?” she asked.
“Same…” I replied and we laughed again.
And so we went on through the teamaking ritual, exchanging the small stuff our sole parenting lives were based on, until finally she sat down and sighed, deeply. Picking up a large envelope from one of the piles on the table, she handed it to me. I opened it and pulled out an A2 size X-Ray. I stood and walked to the window where the sun was streaming in and held it to the cold, smooth glass.
“OK, mate. What am I looking at?” I said.
She came up behind me and her finger floated past my shoulder to a black smudge that marred a clear white patch in the film. I turned and looked at her. Her mediterannean eyes were so clear in her thin white face.
“Its lung cancer,” she said quietly.
“When did they diagnose it?” I said, my words falling from a mouth that felt filled with thick, dirty cotton wool.
“Two weeks ago. I fell out of bed last month and the pain in my back didn’t go away and I just felt like s**t all the time so I went to the doctor and he sent me for x-rays and then they found this…”

Her voice trailed off to where I could not follow. Her eyes flicked back to the film pinned to the window. I felt a deep shudder that started in my soul and rolled out through my fingertips and the x-ray slipped to the floor.

“How long did they give you…?” I whispered.
“I’m going to beat this, Rebecca. I went macrobiotic. I’m booked into the Gawler Foundation week after next.”
“What about chemo?” I asked, desperate.
“Nope. Not going to do that. Don’t need it. I can do this the natural way - I’ll beat this… for the kid’s sake.”
“Have you told them yet?”
“No, I don’t want them worrying.”
“Sarah! You have to tell them something-you’re their only parent! Well, the only one who gives a damn, that is…”
“It’s OK, Bec. Mums looking out for them.”

And then she turned and sat back at the table and lit a cigarette.

“Are you f*****g MAD?” I said quietly. “You haven’t given up smoking? Sarah! That’s what’s caused the cancer! I don’t understand!”
“Hah!” she spat at me. “Nothing worse than an ex-smoker!”
“I gave up more than 10 years ago!” I spat.
“Why should I give up, Bec? I’ve already got lung cancer. What’s a few more ciggies gonna do? I’ll give up in a few weeks when I have to go to the Foundation…”
I looked at my friend. I saw death beneath her skin and I fought hard not to cry but she saw me swallowing my tears and pain and reached out and grasped my hand.
“I’ll be OK, I’ll beat this,” she said. “Just watch.”

And watch I did. Watched her get thinner and thinner. Watched her throw up. Watched as the next months x-rays showed the spot had grown bigger. Watched as her bony body became brittle and skeletal. Watched as an MRI showed the cancer had metastasized to her brain. Watched as one month later, the cancer showed up in her liver and pancreas.

It was then when finally, she stopped denying her dying.

I opened the hospital room door. It was a hot January day, four months since we had stood in her dining room looking at that black and white death sentence. Sarah sat in bed, propped and supported with pillows, lines and tubes running in and out of her cadaverous body to various machines pinging around the room. I enveloped her in a hug, her paper-thin brittle skin crackling heat in my embrace.
“Don’t touch me,” she whispered, her voice so small. “Oh God, I hurt so much. I want your hug but it hurts. It hurts to see you.”
I cracked a couple of lame jokes and she tried to smile, but all the joy had seeped from her heart. She leaned back against the pillows and I looked at her. She was just a skeleton wearing Sarah’s skin, yet her eyes blazed still with spirit and courage. I reached out and handed her the huge amethyst I had brought.

“I love you…” I said, trying desperately to hold it all together for the brief few moments the hospital staff had allowed me.
“I love you, too…It’ll be OK, Bec.”
Her voice was as emaciated as her body.
And then I had to go. I kissed her on the dry hotness of her forehead and whispered goodbye. And then I sat in a quiet corner of the palliative care ward and howled at the injustice and unfairness of it all. Because I knew I would never see my friend again in this world, in this life. It was not the dying that tore me apart, but the leaving.

When the final refrain of Led Zeppelins, “D’yer Make Her”, floated through the still air of the funeral chapel and the last fat, heavy tears of the service rolled down my face I looked up at her coffin. I whispered to myself. “Thank you, my friend. Thank you for the gift you gave me - your friendship. Thank you for the love and the laughter. Thank you for believing in me when no one else did. My world is a better place for having had you in my life.” And I stood and went to where her two children were standing in their grandmothers embrace and hugged them both to me, before making my way back out into the world.

I stood on the steps of the chapel and for a brief moment, I felt the world stop again. But this time I heard every note of every bird song. I felt the kiss of the sun on my skin, the breath of the breeze on my face. Light dappled everything in glorious colour and I felt the world breathe with me. Music filled my heart with memory. Love found its seat in my soul and I knew that although my friend had died, yet still she was here with me, all around me, in me, forever.

I hugged my son a lot, that day.

april 2006

Reviews

[lisameryl]

Maggie, my eyes are filled with tears and my heart is full of sorrow. My condolences, thoughts and prayers are with you over your loss of such a beautiful family-friend. This is beautifully and powerfully written along with fine bits of humourous conversation. I'm deeply moved...touched my heart and soul...with much food for thought...reminding me I should be grateful and thankful for everyone and everything in my life. Thank you for sharing this write.

[Emily Rae]

touched my soul

[Cricket Kidd]

there are just some things you can't put into a review, feelings that are impossible to express with words. words are just too inadequate...

[♥]

This is really sweet yet dark and true. Another piece of writing I loved.

[Nabil]

it seem like a biography , full of melancholy ,events développement was not complicated , really it is good . but need some perfection.

[Sasha]

Great piece of writting. I like it. :)