I ran into an acquaintance at Thrifty’s the other day that I haven’t seen in years. He asked when our garlic would be available for sale at the farmers market.
This happens every few months: I have to break the cancer news to someone who had no idea, who was just making the usual small talk that happens when you encounter a familiar face. I’m not the sort of person to say “we’re fine” and keep quiet: instead, I drop the cancer bomb and watch as the friend’s face shifts through all those familiar stages. Shock, denial, grief.
I can hear the synapses firing in their brains as they struggle to figure out what to say. Most people express how truly shitty and shocking it all is. Many reveal their own family/friend cancer struggles. A few people try to solve Brock’s cancer, which is a natural human response but unhelpful given that most people aren’t oncology specialists.
Brock and I chose to be very public about his cancer diagnosis. We literally sent a press release to the local newspaper. My journalist peep and co-author Sarah Simpson had once told me that “news” was “anything that people want to know about,” and I figured a lot of people in our community would want to know that Brock had terminal cancer, and that our farm would no longer be operating. They were relying on us for their carrots, for chrissake.
My body still remembers that RELIEF it felt when the newspaper story was published (on the front page, above the fold, full colour family photo — I love small towns). Finally I wouldn’t have to drop the cancer bomb everywhere I went. Instead, without saying a word, I got hugs and sympathetic “How are you all doing?” questions. Wow, that relief … Instead of me and Brock and our families carrying this pain, suddenly hundreds of people shouldered it along with us.
So, while I don’t often have to break the cancer news to people these days, it does sometimes happen. As evidenced by my grocery shopping friend.
The thing is … that moment before I told him about Brock dying and about how we’d sold our farm, we’d been two normal adults catching up by the deli counter. Normal people would have discussed the heat, our ever-growing children, and maybe some major life news like moving house or changing a job.
But then the cancer bomb drops and BOOM, things are suddenly serious.
I watched the bomb fall and through his eyes I saw his brain working, searching for the right words, and I realized how Brock and I are not living a Normal Life anymore.
It’s been a gradual change.
The move from our tiny farmhouse to a rented apartment, the sale of the farm, the sales of all that equipment. His naps, his weight loss, his lungs being eaten up by tumours.
On Facebook I see friends’ photos of family camping trips, someone setting out on a Bucket List adventure. Normal people make plans for 2018. They complain about their jobs.
Brock and my world is no longer this Normal world. Our world is visits from home care nurses and palliative care specialists. I set timers to ration Brock’s limited energy. We talk about financial planning for when I’m a single parent. I build Lego sets while Brock naps through the afternoon.
It’s been almost three years of slowly warming water, the changes so gradual that we’ve managed to be Stoic (capitalized because I mean the philosophy) about the whole experience.
Ironically, here’s a conversation we had back in the early 2000s, before Isaac was even born:
HEATHER: I’ve been researching delivery vehicles for the farm and I think we should get a minivan.
BROCK: A minivan? Ugh. I feel so … normal.
HEATHER: Don’t worry. We opted out of normal a long time ago.
