Fighting to Remember

For two days we fought like cats and dogs—or maybe like Mars and Venus. All the things that the experts and relationship books say not to do we did: Brought up the past, said mean things, accused, said “always” and “never”, got loud, got silent, went to bed mad, didn’t go to bed at all. And then we cried. We sat on the bed sobbing. Were we really going to end this? What was this fury and terrible desperate pain between us? And inside of me I was asking, “Why now?” The past several months had been so happy; we’d had such a wonderful summer; we were making plans. We were both shaking our heads and reeling from our battle. And then…

And then yesterday I came home from work to a phone message from the oncologist. A reminder call that blood tests and follow up cancer screening is this Friday. Neither of us had remembered. Neither of us had put it on the calendar. But here it was and we both knew. Deep down in the body or mind we both knew the scary time was coming again and the risk to us was back. Now even more frightening because we had gotten comfortable again.

Cancer had gone on a long trip.

And we just got a postcard saying, “Be home soon; wish I was there.”