Fluorescent Yellow

Grant to Mom: “So . . . does your new walker have tennis balls on it?”
Mom to Grant: “Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”
Grant: “That means it does!”
Mom: “Fluorescent yellow.”

Our conversation then dissolved into gales of laughter. One of the things I love most about my son is his sense of humor, a warped match for mine, and the fact that nothing is sacred or off-limits. Everything is fair game for joking. And none of it is mean-spirited, just funny. We love to piggyback on each other’s comments, ramping up the interaction until everyone is laughing. Humor is a fabulous companion. It helps you get through a lot of things, letting you know this is the moment, this very moment of your life, for you to enjoy fully. No matter what the circumstances. When Grant was at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center, in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), being treated for stage-four melanoma, we enjoyed humor there.

While the nurse was checking Grant into his room, recording his responses to a list of questions on the in-room computer, she came to a question about religious preference. After a pause, Grant replied, “None,” in the presence of his former metaphysical minister mother. After another pause, I said, “What? You’re not going to own up to the Santeria and voodoo?” A laughter-filled conversation about chicken heads and blood followed as Grant, the nurse and I bonded through humor. She certainly had an insight into her new patient and his family dynamics.

Each of the six times we returned to UCLA for Grant’s week-long treatment in ICU, we found a new humorous way to greet Grant’s oncologist: “We brought him back so you could make him sick again.” “We brought him back so you could torture him some more.” “Just show me to the Lindsay Lohan suite,” Grant declared on entering when she was on the same floor for rehab.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who endured years of unspeakable horror in Nazi death camps, writes about having everything stripped away, all freedoms. All but one. He is very clear that no matter where we find ourselves, no matter what the circumstances, we always have one freedom that can never be taken away. We have the freedom to choose how we respond to our situation.

At the end of this month, I will be attending the first annual Spring Writers’ Retreat for the Albuquerque Writers Cooperative founded by Lynne C. Miller and Lisa Lenard-Cook, who publish bosque (the magazine), a literary journal. Lynn has taught writing at the college level for 36 years. Both have authored several books. Today, I must submit 10-25 manuscript pages for their review. I’m sending them a selection from The Caregiver’s Journey: Supporting Adult Children with Cancer, so my experiences in the hospital with Grant are in the forefront of my mind. And the humor that helped us survive it. Dare I say, enjoy it? It’s our one life. How do we choose to respond?

In gathering material for the book, I came across a quotation in the Living/Dying Project newsletter (winter 2011), that is central to the book and central to life: “Imagine using a life-threatening illness as an opportunity for spiritual awakening. Imagine approaching the unknown with an open heart. We often resist change as a natural part of life. Strength and healing can be found in life’s most difficult situations.”

After five days of confinement to the ICU hospital bed, Grant disconnected all the tethers holding him down, stood up, wobbled, raised his fist in the air and declared, “Power to the People.” In this spirit, we claim the quality of our life by using our power to choose our response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves.