Tony Snow Died

We were on vacation and sitting Sunday morning reading the papers. “Oh, Tony Snow died” someone said. There was something in her voice that caught me. I didn’t remember who Tony Snow was but I knew that later I needed to read that obit. The Times obituary page showed Tony Snow’s death announcement right next to that of Bobby Mercer.

Once again, I knew something. I have these “ideas” premonitions maybe, sometimes it just comes to me as a knowing. My grandmother Josephine was psychic, had “the gift”. She was born with a “veil”…part of the afterbirth covering her face. They say, that is a sign of having psychic abilities. I always wanted to have her gift, but now I’m not so sure. I do know things, often painful things before there is any reason for me to know.

I read the Tony Snow obit and scanning the paragraph I felt cold and ill. Snow was 53 and had colon cancer. It was diagnosed in 2005, he had surgery, then it came back in 2007 and in April of this year surgery again, death in July. Time from diagnosis: Three years. I do the math over and over. I count on my fingers. Three years. He was young, only 53. He did all the same things John is doing: removal of colon, chemo. Even the chemo sounds the same. The obit mentions that Snow had not lost his hair but it had thinned during chemo. That’s a sign of the 5-FU chemo.

I keep counting 2005 to July 2008. Three years. And Snow had the same, “I’m not dying, I’m living” attitude. I look at the dates and do the math again. Three years. I feel the panic in me. Just the night before John had said to me that he was picturing us 20 years from now. I don’t have that picture. I’m counting months.

When I was growing up women in the neighborhood always counted backwards when someone had a baby. I saw them count on their fingers. It took me years to understand what they were doing. Nine months backwards form baby birth to wedding. When was this baby begun? I count backwards now to John’s diagnosis in April 2008. Will we get three years? Five? Two? The panic is pounding in me and I don’t know how to talk to him about Tony Snow dying.