A Birthday Tribute

February 2012

I sit here in a chair in a large room dotted with other identical chairs accompanied by IVs and family members. The IV bag hanging from my stand is darker than the others hanging around the room. Mine is a dark brown, almost black. The others are a bright fluorescent yellow.

The nurse ties the band around my upper arm, taps the inside of my elbow, and slides the needle under my skin. Needles and IVs have become commonplace for me over the past two months. I watch as gravity pulls the cold liquid into my veins.

I look at the bright yellow bags and wonder if those solutions feel like fire rather than ice. A chemical firestorm sweeping through the body to obliterate an insidious imposter, but not without collateral damage.

Does it feel like hope?

I don't belong here. I'm sitting here waiting for my veins to be replenished with strength. I'm not fighting a life-threatening battle. But I'm here, in this office, with these incredibly strong people who come here on a regular basis because their lives depend on it.

Incredibly strong people like my grandmother.

Sitting in this chair, I wonder, has she been in this exact spot? Sitting in this seat? She came to this office to see the doctor I see now, but for a different reason. But she is why I am seeing this doctor. Because of her history. Because of her treatments. Because of her lymphoma.

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I didn't know my grandmother had lymphoma until the last few years of her life. She was the type of person who did everything she could for others, lived life in the best way possible, and didn't let anything get in her way.

Maybe I was oblivious, maybe I was naive, but I didn't know until I was almost in college, until her hospital visits became more frequent, until treatments started failing twenty years after her diagnosis.

When the call from my uncle came late one July night, I knew from the tone of his voice. I quickly interrupted him to tell him to call my mom's cell phone, that she and my dad were out at a U2 concert. The call only lasted a few seconds, but it left me in tears.

I curled up in my bed and cried, hoping my mom would make it to the hospital, knowing that I wouldn't see my grandmother again. When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed about her, that she passed away peacefully surrounded by the people she loved. I dreamed about her funeral. I woke up early that morning when my parents finally made it back home and I knew before I left my bed. I felt guilty for my dreams, upset that I had made the inevitable come true.

It's been almost thirteen years since she passed away, but I still think about my grandmother often.

How she laughed at the hospital's daily "lavender time" for relaxation, waving her lavender around from her hospital bed.

How she would ramble and then say, "Anyhow..."

How she would call for everyone's birthday and sing "Happy Birthday," even if she was just singing to an answering machine.

How she threw handmade stockings filled with money across the living room when everyone was piled around the Christmas tree.

How she fell asleep with knitting needles in her hands, continuing to knit as her head bobbed up and down. She still managed to make progress in her sleep.

A small but strong woman. A woman with a pistol permit and a great sense of humor. A talented woman who played the piano. A woman who knit baby clothes and blankets and Christmas stockings and so many other things. A woman who consistently volunteered at her church, always baking or making something to be donated. A woman with a love of koalas. A love so strong she got one tattooed on her shoulder in her seventies.

A woman, standing less than five feet tall, who stood up to two young men in a dark parking lot one night when they tried to steal her jewelry.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" She had asked them. They answered by leaving her alone.

Thank you for your sense of humor and your laughter, even in difficult times. Thank you for carrying the weight of so many burdens when they weren't your burdens to carry, especially during your hardest days. Thank you for gifting me the love of music and inspiring me to play the piano. Thank you for your love and your strength.

I could write so much more about the selfless and compassionate woman who defined resilience before I even knew what it meant.

Happy 91st birthday, Grandma. Thank you for everything.