else?”
“You really should start dating. It’d be good for you.”
“Let it go, Mom.”
Her mom’s eyes brighten. “What about Archie?”
“I have a knife.”
“Fine.” She puts her hands up in surrender. “I just want to make sure you’re happy.”
“Cutting things makes me happy.”
“Then here,” her mom says, handing her a head of romaine lettuce.
They work in comfortable silence for the next few minutes. There is no conversation, just the sounds of the kitchen. From the living room, a crowd erupts on the television. Mari’s dad lets out a happy shout. Yay, sports.
“You read that letter yet?” her mom asks.
Mari sets down the knife and looks up at the ceiling. She wants to make her mom happy, but she’s sick of this topic. She wants to scream at the top of her lungs. She wants to scream so loudly that it will shatter glass, send birds to flight, and set off car alarms.
Instead she drops her eyes to the chopped lettuce. “I don’t care about contacting that woman, Mom. She’s a stranger. You’ve always been here for me. I want to be here for you. What’s wrong with that?”
Her mom sighs. “Nothing, honey. Just don’t forget that there are other people out there that need you, too.”
If I Could, I Would Hug You Back
Thursday
Mari clicks through the search results. All the first several websites are laid out in the same way. Neutral or light color schemes meant to exude reassurance. A large, happy logo on the main page. Links on the left-hand side that lead to sections that explain the basic information, the process of diagnosis, the treatment options, support group information.
The survival rates.
Mari reads page after page about fatty tissues, mammary glands, the lactiferous sinus, and lymphatic nodes. She encounters clunky medical terms, words like
metastasize
,
lobular carcinoma
,
chemoembolization
. They all sound like demons in some fantasy game. She whispers the words quietly over and over again, until they flow from her lips, hoping that mastering their names removes their power.
She studies illustrated diagrams of naked female torsos. The beige skin is always lifted from one breast to expose the spidery web of ligaments and ducts radiating from the beneath the nipple. She watches 3D-animation videos that show malevolent, black and purple lumps growing and spreading and then invading other parts of the body. She examines post-mastectomy photographs wherein single breasts hang asymmetrically opposite scars that look like crooked smiles. Mari is certain she will never be able to see another female—or herself—in the same way ever again.
Mari starts to recognize the same information and the same pictures on website after website. On the search results pages she skips past the links to medical sites and eventually stumbles across a blog kept by a woman diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
Besides detailing her experiences with various treatments and describing how the disease affects her everyday life, the woman reflects in a way only the dying are really able to, recounting her accomplishments, noting her regrets, and offering advice. The writer, a mother of three, mostly posts about how much she loves her children. She writes with words of pain and love, of beauty and sadness.
To her children, she writes, “I pray not that you will be happy or successful. But that you will be good. That you will learn to lose your selves and lift up others.”
Mari writes those words on her wall and then continues to read every other post, falling in love with the woman’s wit and humility in struggle. The final post, written by the woman’s husband, over two years ago, thanks readers for their support and provides the funeral information.
When there is no Next link to click anymore, Mari finally loses it. She takes off her glasses and buries her face in her arms and sobs for the first time since her mom broke the news to her.
Mari cries for this woman she did not know, this
“You really should start dating. It’d be good for you.”
“Let it go, Mom.”
Her mom’s eyes brighten. “What about Archie?”
“I have a knife.”
“Fine.” She puts her hands up in surrender. “I just want to make sure you’re happy.”
“Cutting things makes me happy.”
“Then here,” her mom says, handing her a head of romaine lettuce.
They work in comfortable silence for the next few minutes. There is no conversation, just the sounds of the kitchen. From the living room, a crowd erupts on the television. Mari’s dad lets out a happy shout. Yay, sports.
“You read that letter yet?” her mom asks.
Mari sets down the knife and looks up at the ceiling. She wants to make her mom happy, but she’s sick of this topic. She wants to scream at the top of her lungs. She wants to scream so loudly that it will shatter glass, send birds to flight, and set off car alarms.
Instead she drops her eyes to the chopped lettuce. “I don’t care about contacting that woman, Mom. She’s a stranger. You’ve always been here for me. I want to be here for you. What’s wrong with that?”
Her mom sighs. “Nothing, honey. Just don’t forget that there are other people out there that need you, too.”
If I Could, I Would Hug You Back
Thursday
Mari clicks through the search results. All the first several websites are laid out in the same way. Neutral or light color schemes meant to exude reassurance. A large, happy logo on the main page. Links on the left-hand side that lead to sections that explain the basic information, the process of diagnosis, the treatment options, support group information.
The survival rates.
Mari reads page after page about fatty tissues, mammary glands, the lactiferous sinus, and lymphatic nodes. She encounters clunky medical terms, words like
metastasize
,
lobular carcinoma
,
chemoembolization
. They all sound like demons in some fantasy game. She whispers the words quietly over and over again, until they flow from her lips, hoping that mastering their names removes their power.
She studies illustrated diagrams of naked female torsos. The beige skin is always lifted from one breast to expose the spidery web of ligaments and ducts radiating from the beneath the nipple. She watches 3D-animation videos that show malevolent, black and purple lumps growing and spreading and then invading other parts of the body. She examines post-mastectomy photographs wherein single breasts hang asymmetrically opposite scars that look like crooked smiles. Mari is certain she will never be able to see another female—or herself—in the same way ever again.
Mari starts to recognize the same information and the same pictures on website after website. On the search results pages she skips past the links to medical sites and eventually stumbles across a blog kept by a woman diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
Besides detailing her experiences with various treatments and describing how the disease affects her everyday life, the woman reflects in a way only the dying are really able to, recounting her accomplishments, noting her regrets, and offering advice. The writer, a mother of three, mostly posts about how much she loves her children. She writes with words of pain and love, of beauty and sadness.
To her children, she writes, “I pray not that you will be happy or successful. But that you will be good. That you will learn to lose your selves and lift up others.”
Mari writes those words on her wall and then continues to read every other post, falling in love with the woman’s wit and humility in struggle. The final post, written by the woman’s husband, over two years ago, thanks readers for their support and provides the funeral information.
When there is no Next link to click anymore, Mari finally loses it. She takes off her glasses and buries her face in her arms and sobs for the first time since her mom broke the news to her.
Mari cries for this woman she did not know, this
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