I Feel

I cry through every scan. 

The last several tests have delivered the best kind of news, but still, hot tears trail my face through the sting of the needle, the careful touch of the technicians, the whirring and clanging of the pristine tube, then the pleasant robot woman’s voice: “Hold your breath . . . breathe.”

I breathe.

Clara comes home red-eyed with a yearbook full of signatures. It’s almost the last day of junior high, and she has inherited my sentimentality. It’s been a difficult year, but today, many teachers are cherished and just-classmates are friends. I read her a text I received from her favorite teacher, and my voice is suddenly gone. We sit on the couch, my arm over her shoulders, paging through her eighth-grade memories and laughing with a box of tissues nearby.

Every day, I gag down five rough and chalky horse pills. Three in the morning and two at night. Sometimes they get stuck or come back up. I dread the ordeal and despise the way they make me feel. They are saving my life. 

Jacob lies next to me on my bed at night and talks about his future. He’s almost a high school senior. He has plans, and stressors, and everything he needs to become the best kind of man. He shares with me the outcome of his tennis match, careers he’s been considering, the details of his recent dance date, and his thoughts about why people turn out to be certain ways. I tell him he makes me proud.

My heart feels strange. The MRI reported that it functions just fine, but it seems to carry me weakly through my days. I give it the deference it deserves, but I long to feel its strength again. A strength I never noticed before. 

Ellie came home from college for a few days. The mood of the whole house is lighter. She has grown so much, learning to live on her own with bravery and her characteristic brand of stoicism. But she likes it here. We like her here. We gather in the living room after dinner.

I’m in a happy, hazy state, absorbing the scent of lilacs through the open window as I rest my head against the back of the couch. The kids lend their harmonies to our familiar Beatles playlist. Time stands still; their voices are easy, unbothered.

I want her everywhere

And if she’s beside me 

I know I need never care

But to love her is to need her everywhere

Knowing that love is to share

Each one believing that love never dies

Watching her eyes 

and hoping I’m always there

I will be there

And everywhere

Here, there, and everywhere

My heart feels strange. And full of everything.

Wanting

I have now spent exactly one year living with my longest lurking fear. I’m here. I have no words for any of it, but I do have some hopes for the future. I think I dare to write them down.

My scans are clean forevermore.

The chemo pill fills the measure of its creation but cools it with the side effects.

I figure out how to swallow five monster pills a day without gagging or choking or making a whole big thing of it (“High-five me! I did it!”).

I never do another 90-minute stint in a narrow, noisy MRI tube with IVs in both of my arms.

I gain 25 pounds (please, please).

I never again faint in a public place. Or a private place.

I never again get wheeled into an ambulance.

My lonely kidney keeps on killing it.

I don’t contract any bacterial infection that a spleen is meant to conquer. (Who knew spleens had a purpose? We’ve been lied to.) 

My partial pancreas pumps out enough insulin to keep the diabetes at bay.

I get to keep the rest of my organs.

I feel like a million bucks the day I turn 50.

I eat as much as I put on my plate.

I run a day’s worth of mundane errands without getting dizzy.

We take the planned trips to Europe we’ve been forced to scrap, and I walk down miles of cobblestone and back. I gaze at flying buttresses and cloud-topped Alps. I eat pastries that are works of art, and they don’t taste like plastic.

I cook a whole Thanksgiving dinner without having to lie down in the middle.

I look in the mirror and recognize myself. “Ah, there you are!” I say.

My heart beats in such a strong, steady rhythm that I hardly notice it—but I welcome every ache and swell.

I laugh so hard my kids get scared and I have to cover my face. 

I go on a girls’ trip with the perfect mix of wonderful women.

I grow tomatoes.

I run up the stairs to grab something I forgot. 

I complain about hauling real Christmas trees into the house and then bask in their memory-stirring scent.

I get choked up when my kids silly-sing in perfect harmony in the car.

I go gray in a dazzling way.

I hold hands with my husband in 214 new and old settings. 

I’m there—I’m right there—at every graduation and wedding.

I answer every text and call from my four favorites.

I see another musical or two on Broadway.

I continue to marvel at the people I made.

I blow up birthday balloons until I’m 80.

I find a bag of Cadbury mini eggs every time I look for one.

I cradle a newborn grandchild for hours while its mother sleeps.

I read every last book on my nightstand. 

I watch generations of tulips push through the dirt.

I help a family of immigrants. I learn their language.

I ask “Why can’t the mountains stay snowy and the valleys stay green?” 72 more times.

I feel the apple-crisp thrill of that first hint of autumn. 

I spend an afternoon studying Emily Dickinson at a sun-drenched table in the back corner of a library. 

I talk about real things around a campfire at night. I step away to stare at the vivid universe, then fall asleep somewhere indoors.

I see the aurora borealis (and not just through an iPhone).

I am a witness when my childrens’ dreams come true and a comfort when they don’t. 

I learn to write poetry.

I cry at live choral music several times a year.

I cry hearing Sara Bareilles sing in person.

I cry at the symphony.

I wear grooves into my piano keys.

I hike.

I bake.

I sing.

I breathe all of it in. I fill my hearty lungs with it.

I live until I’ve had enough of life.

Is that too much to ask?