The Box

For some time now, my father has been writing short stories of his youth that he calls his memoirs. Wonderful, nostalgic stories that make us laugh & cry. One story, though, he wrote just recently; it's called The Box and it conveys how we coped with my mother's terminal illness. I asked my Dad if I could share an excerpt here on my blog. I offer it as an apology of sorts to friends & family who felt I pushed them away during Mom's last few weeks. I probably did. My mother was dying, I wasn't...couldn't be...myself. Dad's words are eloquent, the story is heartwrenching. I think it is beautifully written. I just wish it weren't true.

The Box

{by SCC}

At last, the PET scan was done. Dr. Cozad came in. Somberly, gently, directly, he gave us the heartbreaking results. The cancer had spread, to the lymph nodes and the other lung. The harsh reality: treatment would be futile. It was a death sentence. Genie was scared and she said so...bless her...the doctor was sympathetic, helped as best he could...Leah and I were crushed...

Hospice was all we had. Hospice, the surrender. Hospice...do all to be comfortable until you die which will probably be soon.

It was then that the walls of "the box" came down around us with a thud. Great, heavy, clanging, silent sound...immovable, impenetrable walls...thudding permanently into place. The box was cramped. Limited to a sparse, tiny world of three people, limited to an irretrievable past and a very short future. We had tomorrow, and for a while next week, but there was no next year. Leah and I could not accept existence without her, so nothing existed for us outside the box. We lived completely within, refusing to acknowledge the outer world that was just to horrible to bear.

It was the only way we could survive. Live in the box, an awful world but a known one. Live for today...do meds...make soup, maybe toast...spoon feed jello or pudding or fruit...get fresh water or juice...do meds...straighten her in the bed...make small talk...watch tv...do meds. It was life spurning death.

People from the outer world came into the box, or tried to. Family, and friends, they were intruders. Well-meaning, they didn't understand life in the box, they didn't even know it existed. The hospice people would come...the nurse, the bath lady, the chaplain, the social worker. They belonged, they were helpful, they gave the three of us something real to deal with, within our box. They were of the box. Outside the box they didn't exist...when they left they vanished, like the ball players into the cornfield in Field of Dreams. Where they went we didn't know. We didn't care.

All too soon, Genie was gone, taking the box with her. The two she left behind, Leah and I, were lost in the newly opened wide world. The void we had dreaded, the inevitable void we had refused to acknowledge, was now real, irrefutable. We had been right to resist it...it is horrible, more horrible even than we had imagined. We are completely lost now...We miss the confines of the box, our tiny, miserable little box. As bad as it was, at least she was there. We love her more.