The doctor told her it was important to have a reason to live. How ironic, she thought, that for all the years she silently suffered, praying for an out, and here was her answer; now that it was staring her in the face, she didn't want to go. Actually, that's not true. She was numb and unsure and in shock of what she had just heard. She remembered when she learned of her friend and co worker Brad's untimely death, his badly burned body found in his car in a ditch a few blocks from her house. The last time she saw him was when his band played a show at a nearby club. She felt a migraine coming on and left early that night, giving him a hug and smiling sentiments of a good show before departing. She smiled now knowing that she was kind to him the last time she saw him alive. But she would have gladly switched places with him. She felt guilty for feeling so depressed for so many years, never content with where she was in her life. Working a menial job, but for how long? Not taking action to get to a place of more opportunity. Crying at night, alone in her bed, out of desperation for companionship but during daylight hours pushing everyone away and letting no one in. Staring at her horrific pale complexion in the mirror under florescent lights in the bathroom, praying for the guts to dig the blade into her flesh. Pedaling with traffic on the bike home from work, wondering when she would finally get taken out by a driver gabbing on his cell phone already. Please?
She went to visit her parents for an extended weekend and smiled like everything was okay. She took the dog for long walks to the park and her smile reached her eyes when the dog would sit on the floorboards to feel the cool air from the vents, his pink tongue hanging long out the side of his mouth. High school kids ditching class smoked cigarettes under the pavillion. She walked uptown at dusk with her sister to buy snowcones. Frog in a Blender was always the flavor of choice. Cherry and Green Apple. The air was thick with humidity and the syrup dribbled down the sides of the cup. She sat in the kitchen sprinkling cinnamon over blueberry pancakes made from scratch, laughing with her brother and his stories of the new house he and his friends were renting and how they found out their first night there the place was haunted. She rode her dad's bike out to the levee and counted fifteen red wing blackbirds, six woodpeckers, twenty-three white wading birds, and one blue heron. One Thanksgiving many years before, she saw two wild turkeys. The bottoms along the levee were in hot debate. Developers wanted to put in a large complex of home improvement stores and strip mall shops. Politicians wanted to keep tax dollars in their community and perks from the contractors in their pockets. Residents were torn between the convienence of all-in-one shopping superstores and yearn to keep their small town mom-and-pop feel of the Main Street business district.
She went through her photo albums of friends and old journals and portfolios that were stashed away in the basement storage space. She smiled with friends from swim team standing by giant catci in Phoenix when they went there for holiday training. They hiked up Camelback Mountain twice during their week-long stay. There was also a picture of her in her favorite blue suit, out-of-breath, estastic, hugging her coach the first time she qualified for nationals at the age of 15. Her little brother wearing a chesire cat grin, revealing braces on bucked front teeth, a spider monkey on his shoulder when the family went a tropical trip. There was a picture from a few Halloweens back. She had dressed up like a devil and stood smiling with other bar patrons doning various costumes, some creative, some run-of-the-mill store bought. Her friend Karen and her, cheeks flushed sweaty hair plastered to their foreheads, eating onion rings and oozy cheese steak sandwiches at a little dive in Philly after a concert. Cute sweaty east coast boys they met at the show let them ride on their handlebars, pedaling at high speeds down narrow cobblestone streets, weaving in and out of bar rush traffic. Pictures of her sister's college graduation, brother's confirmation, old friends and new friends at parties. Landscapes of wildflowers, purple yellow and white, that lined the run-off ditches of the crowned rural routes interweaving the corn fields. Baby turtles, shells soft, basking in the sun atop smooth distorted driftwood that washed ashore in the summer floods. They sky at twilight, exploding pink and orange, silouetting the railroad gates and tagged boxcars at the train yard. Even some time lapse of the sky at night, the stars burning white lines in the film when she left the shutter open to capture a lunar eclipse. She enjoyed viewing the sky a night. The city had too much light for visible stars and only an occassional sighting of Venus. Out in the country the canopy was dotted with thousands of little white lights, and she remembered as a young girl, finding The Big Dipper and The Little Dipper while running around the yard with other kids from the neighborhood, catching fireflies while adults sat around a bonfire grilling, drinking, laughing.
She had goals. Career goals, financial goals, adventure goals. She had moved to a bigger city of more opportunity and new experiences, working full time in a field that impassioned her and enrolled in classes at night to further her education to take her to the next step. School was enjoyable and the subjects stimulated her mind. She smiled when she thought about owning her own practice and setting her own hours and being in a position to help others and improve their health. She wanted to pedal her bike on an extended tour from Pacific to Atlantic during the summer with an intimate group of riders, viewing majestic snow-capped mountains, swimming in cold deep lakes, smelling dry dessert sage, and taking turns preparing dinners of locally grown produce while camping on the outskirts of small towns dotting roads less traveled. She wanted to raft the entire Grand Canyon, complete an Iron woMan TriAthlon, go everywhere and see everything and keep a photoalbum in her head of her laughing with other daring dedicated souls who shared her passion for adventure.
The doctor told her from the biopsy, the strain did not appear overly-aggressive, and she could take some time for reflection before deciding which treatment to undergo, if at all. She would lose all her hair, that was certain. She might not be able to have children. There was a chance her face would become bloated and her body would pile on weight. An equal chance was that the drugs would make her wretch constantly and her lean muscles would turn flaccid and her face gaunt. Odds that she would fully recover, odds that the malignant cells wouldn't respond at all. But the odds didn't matter. There was still too much living to do. Her competitive spirit kicked in, and the decision was already made. She knew she was going to kick this motherfucker cancer's ass.
