because the Teflon was peeling off my old one something awful and what if a houseguest requests pancakes? Another time I wrote “red ribbon” to remind myself I needed to pick up more at the dollar store in case mine runs out on Christmas Eve after all the stores are closed. Okay, so maybe it was July when that happened, but you can’t put a time line on preparedness. Mother will run out of red ribbon and guess who will have the last laugh. That’s right. Little ole prepared me.
Our older daughter’s diagnosis came on a Tuesday afternoon. By Thursday I had the three-ring binder color-coded and collated, and I firmly believe the decision of which chemo to do was made easier because we had all the information right there at our fingertips. Plan A tab = red, Plan B tab = blue. Plan C (the clinical trial) = yellow. Later, by the time the search for a bone marrow donor was under way, I’d turned our dining room table into a grid of neat piles of research I could easily cross-reference. We had no way of knowing how it would all turn out, but we did the best wecould under the circumstances and anyway no amount of preparedness can help you when you go through what we did. Cricket was nine when her older sister died, almost exactly three years ago. An anniversary I’ve come to dread so much I very nearly block it out.
On September 11, 2001, before the second tower fell, when the TV people started saying things like act of terrorism , I didn’t panic or run to the store for supplies. I felt terrible about the whole thing, mind you—just horrible. But I knew I had emergency backpacks under the bed, and because I have an inventory list I know they’re each packed with two flares, an army green canteen, a Swiss Army knife, three bottles of water, four packs of matches and a lighter, a jar of peanut butter, MREs, iodine tablets for water purification, a large bag of raisins, a ball of twine, a map of the United States, a compass, two hundred dollars in twenties with the Andrew Jacksons all facing out, and, at the very top, gas masks I got at the Army-Navy store some years back. So even biological warfare won’t catch me off guard. Last night I finally finished updating an identical backpack for my mother, and today I let her know it’s back where it’s supposed to be if she ever—God forbid—needs to use it, and you’d think I’d tried to ax-murder her, the way she’s acting right now.
“Honor, honey, listen to me for a minute,” Mother says. “Don’t make that face, just listen. Now, I’m your mother and I can say what other people who shall remain nameless can’t. You’ve gone a little too far with this being prepared thing. You can’t plan life, honey! Things happen. Life happens. You know that. No one knows that better than you and Eddie. You need to show Cricket life throws punches but you get back up and you go on with your life. You don’t—”
“I refuse to see how an emergency backpack filled with flares, bottled water, a little cash—”
“Cash?” Now it’s her turn to interrupt. “Now, what’s that for?”
“It’s for when the ATMs go down, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point? And when, by the way, do ATMs go down? I’ve never heard of that happening.”
“As a matter of fact, on nine-eleven the ATMs all ran out of money,” I say.
“But they didn’t go down ,” she says.
“No, I guess if you’re going to split hairs they didn’t go down , but they might as well have because everybody ran to get cash in case the terrorists invaded and there was none and safety experts said afterward that it was a good idea to keep some money on hand, just in case.”
“Just in case what? Just in case the terrorists need to buy something at the Gap?”
“Ha ha, very funny. I’ve got to go pick up Cricket in about two minutes, just so you know.”
“Honey, this is too much,” Mother says, her face serious now. “It’s gone too far. Cricket’s finally doing
Our older daughter’s diagnosis came on a Tuesday afternoon. By Thursday I had the three-ring binder color-coded and collated, and I firmly believe the decision of which chemo to do was made easier because we had all the information right there at our fingertips. Plan A tab = red, Plan B tab = blue. Plan C (the clinical trial) = yellow. Later, by the time the search for a bone marrow donor was under way, I’d turned our dining room table into a grid of neat piles of research I could easily cross-reference. We had no way of knowing how it would all turn out, but we did the best wecould under the circumstances and anyway no amount of preparedness can help you when you go through what we did. Cricket was nine when her older sister died, almost exactly three years ago. An anniversary I’ve come to dread so much I very nearly block it out.
On September 11, 2001, before the second tower fell, when the TV people started saying things like act of terrorism , I didn’t panic or run to the store for supplies. I felt terrible about the whole thing, mind you—just horrible. But I knew I had emergency backpacks under the bed, and because I have an inventory list I know they’re each packed with two flares, an army green canteen, a Swiss Army knife, three bottles of water, four packs of matches and a lighter, a jar of peanut butter, MREs, iodine tablets for water purification, a large bag of raisins, a ball of twine, a map of the United States, a compass, two hundred dollars in twenties with the Andrew Jacksons all facing out, and, at the very top, gas masks I got at the Army-Navy store some years back. So even biological warfare won’t catch me off guard. Last night I finally finished updating an identical backpack for my mother, and today I let her know it’s back where it’s supposed to be if she ever—God forbid—needs to use it, and you’d think I’d tried to ax-murder her, the way she’s acting right now.
“Honor, honey, listen to me for a minute,” Mother says. “Don’t make that face, just listen. Now, I’m your mother and I can say what other people who shall remain nameless can’t. You’ve gone a little too far with this being prepared thing. You can’t plan life, honey! Things happen. Life happens. You know that. No one knows that better than you and Eddie. You need to show Cricket life throws punches but you get back up and you go on with your life. You don’t—”
“I refuse to see how an emergency backpack filled with flares, bottled water, a little cash—”
“Cash?” Now it’s her turn to interrupt. “Now, what’s that for?”
“It’s for when the ATMs go down, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point? And when, by the way, do ATMs go down? I’ve never heard of that happening.”
“As a matter of fact, on nine-eleven the ATMs all ran out of money,” I say.
“But they didn’t go down ,” she says.
“No, I guess if you’re going to split hairs they didn’t go down , but they might as well have because everybody ran to get cash in case the terrorists invaded and there was none and safety experts said afterward that it was a good idea to keep some money on hand, just in case.”
“Just in case what? Just in case the terrorists need to buy something at the Gap?”
“Ha ha, very funny. I’ve got to go pick up Cricket in about two minutes, just so you know.”
“Honey, this is too much,” Mother says, her face serious now. “It’s gone too far. Cricket’s finally doing
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