Hello?

Last night I got a phone call from a woman who I dreaded to say ‘Hello’ to. My hands shook and my heart felt like it was in my throat the moment I saw the number flash upon the little LCD screen. She wasn’t a friend. She wasn’t a long lost relative. This woman, I thought, held no significance in my life. I rarely saw her. Quite frankly, didn’t enjoy her company. Was she an enemy? No, but this woman held something in her hands that I had no control over.

My life.

I’ve gotten to the point lately that life seems more complicated and difficult to deal with. It’s not for lack of trying, it’s just that my plate seems to be over flowing with rancid, maggot infested food for thought and quite frankly, I’ve been choking on a few pieces that have been just too hard for me to swallow. I get up every morning like the rest of you; one leg gets thrown over the edge of a bed I’ve slept in for over 10yrs followed by the other. To this day, I still look over my shoulder hoping to find the man I used to share it with while I shiver in self inflicted coldness. Why? I have felt so alone through this whole thing. I have learned to resent his absence, Hell, I have learned to resent a lot of people’s. In a way, I feel as if it were my punishment in doing the same to a friend who so desperately needed me. Now it was my turn. Where was everyone?

Like the saying goes, “Some days we can not see the forest for the trees”, I couldn’t or wouldn’t let anyone get close to me. I have dismissed their friendship or pushed them away in an attempt to hide myself and refused to admit I needed help or worse yet, accept it but wondered why I was so alone. Days on end, I’d go through the motions simply existing and waiting for the inevitable. In private, I’d breakdown and curse the world for making that existence intolerable. I wanted someone to blame but ended up accusing myself. I had to have done something wrong for my life to have gone down this far.

To say that the caller had my life precariously trapped in the palm of her hand would be a metaphorical exaggeration. She’s had no power over me. She’s done nothing to me. She’s never been in control of a life that’s been seemingly fleeting but what she DID have, was the power to give a verdict of either life or death and I had been waiting, preparing myself. I knew this day would come.

I let the first few rings go…I couldn’t pick up. Why? I was…

Afraid.

I didn’t want to answer the phone and hear what I already knew. But I did. After what seemed only to be a minute or two listening, it was over. Done. Fine`. I stood up on shaky legs and walked into the other room, but I honestly felt paralyzed and in a fog as I whispered to my mother who could only hold me.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve done the same; Legs, so weary from trying to hold up shoulders that had been desperately overburdened, lost feeling and the only thing I could think of was to be held by a woman who has been my comfort but yet still tried to shelter her from my own inevitable destruction.

But it still hadn’t hit me. It wasn’t until I started to drive home did I begin to cry. My children were so preoccupied that they didn’t see the tears fall from my cheek, past my heart and land on my chest; that heart was heaving in soo much emotion that it felt like it was going to break, that chest…that chest was stained with contempt. I parked the car in the usual and customary spot, wiped my tears and let the boys hop upon bicycles and ride away in freedom for a few more minutes before bed time. I, on the other hand, fell onto my couch and began to ball uncontrollably.

It finally hit me.

For months I have feared this day. For months I’ve gone through the motions not letting myself care about anyone or anything because I was afraid I would end up hurting them in the end. For months I’ve felt alone. For months I had been planning my own death both emotionally and physically.

Like I’ve said before, being told you have cancer isn’t like falling down and scraping your knee. Band aides just don’t cut it. This was the big one. This was the thing that was going to tear my children from me and forever alter how they view life. This was going to break a woman who had been through losing a child already too soon. This was going to push away a man who I wanted to be so close to. This was the thing I feared the most.

Dying.

For months, things have been two dimensional. Black or white. I didn’t want to plan long term, I didn’t want to give myself the opportunity to let someone down when I just wasn’t there.

I’d seen flowers bloom but the smell eluded me.

I’d seen expression yet was deaf to the laughter.

I’d been witness to the joy of watching my family grow but riddled with so much torment in the thought of losing them.

I’d set myself apart from the living before I was even dead.

I cried and cried last night. This woman, the caller, had handed down a sentence that I had to live with. And you know what?

Live I will.

This woman gave me the best news I had heard in months. That fear, even though founded, had been obliterated from my mind. All I could think about after it finally sunk in was how I was going to be able to watch my babies become men and hear their laughter and maybe just maybe be able to hold my grandchildren one day. I thought of how the burden had finally been lifted from very fatigued shoulders and how free I felt.

How alive I was indeed.

I had that phone in my hand the entire time; calling people that I had pushed away, hoping they understood and would share in the rest of my life. I apologized, saying I was so very sorry that I made the mistake of leaving them even though they stood right before me. I know my apologies were accepted even though they might not have been direct. I knew I wasn’t alone and hadn’t been. My mother had her daughter back. Friends, I dearly hope, know now that I never meant to hurt any one of them for I was just in pain. I heard and felt words coming from a man that I hadn’t in a long time. I Love You…OMG I Love you too! And my children, even though they never understood why Mommy had been the way she was, knew she was ok at last...

This woman who I claimed had no significance in my life…became a friend last night, one among many other friends and family who I will never forget and be thankful for, if only because they told me to Live.