Cancer light – Walking against the storm

⁇ 15:33 The bell that no one wants to hear

It was a call on Friday afternoon at 15:33. I was just preparing a kwis beer tasting. In a few minutes my afternoon changed from light to heavy. Since then, I've been trying to write down everything that happens. Not to get pity, but to keep my head and heart together. These blogs are my way of understanding, sharing and showing how I deal with them – sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, but always real.

Life doesn't call in advance to ask if it's convenient.

⁇ Storm Benjamin and I

Last night we walked a hundred meters through storm Benjamin. It sounds heroic, but it was more like a wet comedy scene where Sylvia laughed and I heard myself humming about cold and rain. At the hotel we watched the election debate and I especially felt like a grumpy old man with a wet coat and wet soul. But Sylvia remained light. That helps. She has a talent for getting air in, right when I'm trying to keep the windows potty-tight.

Sometimes the storm blows less when someone next to you laughs.

⁇ The tension under the coffee

The morning started with nerves that we both wanted to acknowledge, but not out loud. I thought: When I grow up, everything stays calm. But nothing stays quiet because you keep yourself big. When the call came that the operation was going on, something in me stopped. Not relieved quiet, rather a kind of waiting room silence in my chest. A viewing operation. It's a biopsy. Maybe tonsils and lymph nodes. The almonds were new. The kind of practical words that a life fits into.

Courage often sounds like a very ordinary yes.

⁇ The day of needles and news

MRI. Tube. Waiting. Another tube. I'm starting to look like an amateur junkie who just forgets to get high. Everything actually went smoothly until the phone call telling me that two nights had been reserved for me. Two of them. With drain. Recording in the AVL instead of a short stopover in my head. The idea that my body temporarily becomes a construction site felt rawer than expected. I nodded as if it all made sense. My inside was less neat.

The body is always ahead of the mind.

⁇ Sylvia and the children

It didn't go smoothly at home either. The dog had to go outside, the children bickered and the daily clutter piled up as if it had all been staged to increase our tension. For the first time I saw tears at Sylvia's. That broke something in me and glued everything together at the same time. There is nothing heavier than seeing someone shake strongly. But there's nothing more loving than knowing you're shaking together.

Sometimes love is a tear that doesn't wipe you away.

⁇ For now

I write this in a hurry. I'm about to leave for tape. I don't know when I'll write again. But I'm writing again. Always. This helps me breathe, and if you're reading along, maybe we can breathe together.

Gravity can have light. And light sometimes weighs surprisingly much.