Cancer Encounters

There is a statistic out there somewhere of how many families are effected by cancer. It is a scary one. My own family has now been hit three times. A family of eight and three cancer victims. More than our fair share I would say.

My dad was the first casualty. A swift and vicious kind of cancer tore him away from a young family. He fought to stay well but lost the battle within a few short months.

My brother, Michael, was the next to fall foul. It was really a repeat of what happened to dad. He was living abroad, not speaking the language and too stubborn to see a doctor when the ‘pea’ sized tumour first appeared. By the time cancer was diagnosed the ‘pea’ was a ‘plum’ and had multiplied. It was too late. He was treated with chemotherapy for a while but the cancer had dug in, built its trenches and lobbed pain and weakness into his body. The doctors didn’t mind the cakes with interesting and possibly illegal ingredients his friends bought to the hospice for him. He wasn’t going to recover.

The poems I wrote during this time were dark ones.

Cancer

It wasn’t personal you understand

I didn’t leaf through a file

And choose you

I just took advantage

Of a mutation, a door left open

Just for a fraction of a second

I didn’t appear threatening

So your body didn’t stop me as

I disabled the burglar alarm

Just a squatter with

My feet up on the sofa

I left a few muddy footprints

It’s in my nature to replicate

To propagate the species

So I seeded myself

A smaller, less malignant me

Grew first here, then there

And then everywhere

The chemotherapy was

Rough on us both

I had to lie down for a while

Size is no indication of power

Fury is sometimes invisible

Science doesn’t have all the answers

The battle was short

In dying you killed me

We both lost

I visited a few times, sitting on hospital verandas drinking strong coffee and watching him smoke hand rolled cigarettes. I discovered how little I knew of him. And, perhaps too, how little I liked him. He had been at boarding school since he was eleven. Bright but lazy he might have done better at the local comprehensive school.

My faith is the bedrock of my life. Although I don’t believe that faith should be a quiet, private thing, with my brother I could not bear his contempt so I kept quiet. I regret that I didn’t find the  courage and offer to pray with him. He might have said, ‘Yes.’ But that is not to say I did not pray. Another poem written later…

Someone Whispered

It was after late night shop window blinds were winched down

After lively conversations on balconies were muted

After echoes of boots on wet pavements dissipated

After curtains shifted in the cool breeze of an open window

Someone whispered

Four courtyard walls, a dozen flats and a chimney of space

A dark square of sky, a scattering of stars, a light drift of cloud

The scent of a dozen meals cooked and the fragrance of wine

The last bars of a song, water from a shower, the low rumble of a washing machine

Someone whispered

We met in daylight, the tenants, glancing and guessing, awkward dances in hallways

We watched each other, reluctant to speak or ask, or look the other in the eye

The names we never knew, because we never asked, never tipped on our tongues

Strangers sharing bricks, cement, a wrought iron gateway and a dozen post-boxes

Someone whispered

Night after night after night

Someone whispered

English, not Spanish

A woman, not a man

At night time, never in the day

Someone whispered

“She’s praying,” said the woman from the top floor as she folded her washing

“It’s her brother’s flat,” announced the man who lived opposite, cigarette between fingers

“He’s in hospital with cancer,” added the young man wheeling his bike into the porch

“Dying,” disclosed the old woman from the ground floor, crossing herself swiftly

Someone prayed

We listened, chairs pulled up to windows, eavesdropping on a conversation

She prayed a storm of words, rebuking tumours the size of an egg, declaring healing

Asking for anointed conversations over cups of coffee on the hospital veranda

Seeking peace, finding anger, raging at God who kept His distance, then saying “sorry”

She prayed

We thought if we were God we would answer her prayer, perhaps

We thought the brother would get the all clear, perhaps

We thought we should say something if we saw her, perhaps

We wished someone would pray for us the way she prayed for him

So we prayed

There is a lot of poetic licence here. I don’t think I had one conversation with any of the residents in the block of flats. I don’t think I spoke t anyone at all. A lonely place to be. But I remember the nights, lying in bed beside an open window. And praying quietly. If anyone heard, apart from God, who seemed at times to be not listening, I don’t know. Other people might have demanded miracles and spoken words of power, but that wasn’t me. Did I just roll over and accept defeat?

There was a fight over his funeral, Some friends insisted that Michael had made a decision to follow Jesus. Others said he hadn’t. Some wanted hymns. Some didn’t. The crematorium rocked with some heavy metal band, but when asked to speak I went the faith path and talked about the time when I would meet him in heaven one day.

My dad and my brother – the firs two encounters with cancer. What about the third?

Oh, that’s me.