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In
the spring of 2000 Susan, my wife of thirty-three years was diagnosed with breast
cancer. It all started with her annual
check-up and her internist saying she felt something “funny” in Susan’s right
breast and the suggestion that she see a breast surgeon.
While
I was surprised, I wasn’t alarmed. It
was going to be Susan’s fourth breast biopsy and unlike the three previous
ones, this one was to be done as an outpatient procedure in a relatively new
surgical center, now found in shopping centers everywhere.
The
surgeon literally skipped into the recovery room to tell us, “It’s just scar tissue
from the old biopsy site—nothing to worry about. I’m sure of it.” I wasn’t so
sure because we still needed to see a lab report. The call came three days
later that the surgeon wanted to meet with Susan and me as soon as possible.
Like
all of those moments in our lives that are unforgettable—where were you when
President Kennedy was shot, or where you when the World Trade Center fell on
9-11— I remember the moment of that visit like it was yesterday. “Stage 3,” he said, “because the size of the cancerous
tissue, and because cancer was in both the ducts and the surrounding tissue.”
As he was sketching out his explanation on an 8.5 x 11 lined piece of paper, I
knew immediately what it meant. I knew in the deepest part of my soul that this
was going to be a journey to the end.
Susan’s
mother died from breast cancer at the age of fifty-six and Susan was now fifty-four.
My mother died from breast cancer that had metastasized to her brain seven
years after the mastectomy. I understood
that the outcome for Susan was grim.
What
happened next is difficult to explain and something I couldn’t say out loud for
thirteen years. How was I going to be able to be with Susan through the
end-of-her days? How would I be able to dance the last dance with my wife?
And
that is how I imagined the moment. Susan
and I standing together in the center of a grand ballroom with a fabulous
orchestra, surrounded by everyone we had ever met, not just our friends and
family, but all the generations from before us and I wondered if in that mass
of people wouldn’t also be the generations yet to come. As the orchestra played the song we loved the
most – Unchained Melody – Susan’s breath would become slower and softer. The dance would become more intense and the
breathing would become even slower and shallower. Then the dance would end. The music would
stop.
I
tried to suppress what I feared might be hallucinations of being in a ballroom
as I committed to be with Susan through the surgery, chemotherapy, and
radiation treatments. Despite my
classical aversion to bloody messes – hell, I rarely changed our kids’ diapers
– I knew I had to be with Susan throughout this entire process. I slept in the hospital room all the way
through her double-mastectomy. I held
that small, semi-circular pan when she was ill from the anesthesia. I learned how to empty those small plastic
bulbs that hung off each breast filled with a red liquid. I even became
optimistic when the surgeon told us there was no cancer in Susan’s lymph nodes.
That
optimism was shattered first when the surgeon had to correct himself when the
lab test showed that there was extensive cancer in the lymph nodes. Seventeen nodes tested. Ten showed cancer. Second, and most dramatically, the oncologist
we selected during his first exam of Susan found a lump – post mastectomy – on
Susan’s chest at the incision point. We
were urgently referred back to the surgeon who scheduled a procedure one week
later to remove the new lump.
At
that point I had once again accepted the inevitability of Susan’s journey, and
now could feel the time arriving much sooner than anyone could have possibly
predicted. I needed help. My first effort
was to talk to our Rabbi. Rather than making an appointment during business
hours and visiting in a formal counseling session, I just showed up one night
as she was getting ready to go home. She
graciously invited me in to her office as she was packing up, but her session
with me missed the mark. She tried to
empathize by anticipating my sadness at the prospect of being a widower with
grandchildren whom my wife would never get to know.
My
next outreach was to a psychiatrist whom I had seen periodically through my
adult life, especially as I was going through life transitions. It was he who helped
by simply saying that my elegantly constructed ballroom dance was a metaphor
for the process of being with the person I loved most in this world through her
end-of-life—and he said it was beautiful.
Those words and that session were magical. It had never occurred to me that the “dance” could
be beautiful. I feared it as tragic and
devastating. I do not know if it was
just his words or if it was my own readiness but the session had a dramatic
effect on me. It enabled me to
understand that “The Actual Dance” was filled with beauty and dignity and that
it would be the ultimate consummation of our, Susan and my, love for each other.
As
it turned out, the lump turned out to be a rare water cyst. Susan, despite
falling into a very high-risk category, survived and continues to thrive—as
does our love and our dance.
* * *
Samuel
A Simon is the playwright of The Actual
Dance, a one-man show about his
journey with Susan during her breast cancer.
His original career was that of lawyer and businessman working as a
national recognized member of the consumer movement. In this his third career, he performs, writes
and speaks about the role of the love partner in caring for those facing
terminal illness.
The Actual Dance is coming to New York City
to help transform the Way People Live and Love in the Face of Cancer… and the
show needs your help. The mission of The
Actual Dance is that Everyone Who Needs to See the Show Be Able to See it.
Learn more about
how you can help with a tax-deductible contribution and more here: http://igg.me/at/theactualdance
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Why is this "The i’Mpossible Project?"
Inspired by Josh Rivedal's book and one-man show The Gospel According to Josh: A 28-Year Gentile Bar Mitzvah. Gospel (non-religious) means "Good News" and Josh's good news is that he's alive, and thriving, able to tell his story and help other people.
On his international tour with his one-man show, he found incredible people who felt voiceless or worthless yet who were outstanding people with important personal stories waiting to be told. These personal stories changed his life and the life of the storyteller for the better.
Josh's one-man show continues through 2015 and beyond and he is looking for people in all walks of life, online and offline, to help give them a voice and share their stories with the world.
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