An update from Jamie:
Truss’s appetite is back! After eating a large bowl of soup and a huge bucket of butter clams across the Puget Sound in Langley, our waitress was astonished to see Truss licking the dregs of juicy drippings off every morsel of shell. “He didn’t eat all of those himself, did he?” Of course he did...and they were just the appetizer... I think Truss came from the sea. He puts down fresh dungeness crab, clams, oysters, fish and prawns like his legs are hollow.
I’m a Cambers; we use our teeth to extract crab from its shell. Truss has followed in my footsteps, although he will use a manmade tool every now and again to extract difficult morsels. During crabbing season, we buy raw chicken and strap it into the pot with our bare hands, chicken juice running down our arms. My kids are worth twenty crab between the four of them, and it is a rare occasion we don’t limit. Crab pour out of Dad’s boat like a never ending incoming tide of flavor. On several occasions I’ve walked our street with bags of crab under my arm offering them to neighbors. “Do you like crab?” Their faces light up. “Yes,” they say, and then I find myself wanting to go buy the whole ocean for them. Crab that were in the Sound yesterday, caught by my family, held in our bare hands; that crab is now on a neighbor’s table. It doesn’t get much better than that. I can’t help it--I want to feed people.
So, I guess now that that is noted, I can go back to Mr. Hollow-Legged Truss. After his soup and clams, he polished off a filet mignon with steak fries...then on the way home, he declared he was utterly famished and a stop at McDonald’s for a chicken breast and more french fries ensued. Eyes widened as he continued to devour the chicken and fries and then five tablespoons of sunflower seed butter with honey, another bowl of soup, an apple juice, bread and a banana.
All of our bellies hurt for him after witnessing his solo feast...except for his. He picked up his shirt, rubbed his taut belly, called himself fat and with a proud gleam of accomplishment in his eye, called it a night. Fat, my boy, does not look like that. Your abdomen looks more like a piece of chiseled marble. Needless to say, our boy is happily working on regaining the six pounds that he recently lost due to a bacterial infection called Yersinia Enterocolitica. He’s also enjoying being fed probiotics in his two spoonfuls of chocolate coconut ice cream daily. I’d be willing to give him more, but he doesn’t know he has that kind of negotiating power. Right now I’d buy him the coconut farm (and hook him up to an intravenous ice cream drip for at least an hour a day).
My other boy, Ned, doesn’t get any ice cream these days. That’s not true, actually, but refined sugar, which I use in most of our baked goods, is too friendly with cancer to remain on the menu. After receiving the most scrumptious soup I’ve ever eaten and apricot bars sans white sugar from a lovely Waldorf parent, I ordered her secret: The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook. Last week, with grand intentions, I tucked it under my arm and laid out a fuzzy, purple blanket where I planned on letting my eyes take in the written feast. Sixteen seconds later Timothy Thomas, our bunny, escaped and attempted to go full throttle for the street. Pier and I have our long, curved herding sticks at the ready. I had to clarify for her yesterday that they are herding sticks and not hurting sticks. After bringing hers down on one of the more uncooperative chickens, I saw further explanation was needed. The book was all dewy when I got back to it a few hours later. It was nice and straight and ironed when I first got it. Now, it has water marks on the edges. My life, without fail, always had water marks. I did come up with a moment to look at the book inside and I will likely be baking in the next week or two with dates as a sugar alternative. At least our family won’t be plugged up. Nor will you, if you come over and eat some.
We found out recently that most melanoma is black. It appears that Ned’s melanoma continues to present atypically because his four centimeter tumor, matted together with several of his lymph nodes was white. And for some inexplicable reason, his melanoma being white puts me at ease. I’ll take it; I could use some soothing. Maybe it’s because images of angels bathed in white light on cumulous clouds are stored in my memory from Italian frescoes, or because heaven is white and airy and painless, or because I loved writing on thick, white paper as a child. Walking down the aisles of our neighborhood store, while other children were pouring over remote control cars and begging for Barbies! Batman! Battleship!, I would curl up in front of blank paper and pens and take a deep, cleansing breath. “Once again,” I would think, “I found my way home.”
Eleven years ago, when I slid Ned’s Costco ring on his finger and he slid his Mom’s wedding band on mine, I wore white. And now, over a decade later, Ned’s white extracted melanoma feels hopeful to me. His CT happened yesterday which will help determine if cancer could be growing elsewhere in his body, and then we meet with his oncologist and surgeon today to see if the word “radiation” is on their lips. I don’t want to go to those appointments because they remind me that we are still totally in this hard, undulating space, and yet I know I couldn’t not be in this grueling process with Ned. But, it would be nice if the appointment was in Italy, where white angels live and a few espresso-sipping oncologists do too.
This morning Wake grabbed my americano, and before he could get it down, I pressed his sweet, bitty hands in mine. “Oh no, baby.” Wake on caffeine, Lord help me. I walked into Verizon a few afternoons ago with Wake toddling along beside me with that gait that is so robust, hearty, and juicy. It makes my blood and body start swirling around him like I’m the Bermuda Triangle. He is mine. I almost want to cackle, I’m so delighted that his seventeen month frame is still so accessible to me. If you saw Wake, thick thighs and beautiful buns, I doubt you could resist reaching out and touching the glory. Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. But, you must know what it is to want to sink your teeth into something. It’s the same feeling I had when I was 9, sitting around my grandma’s dining room table sucking the juices out of a porterhouse steak. Something primal sneaks up on me and then WHAM, I find myself on the ground in the middle of the Verizon store with my teeth bared and my baby’s thigh millimeters from my salivating mouth. His squeals of delight interrupt multiple conversations and I am glad. Stop talking about phones and look at this life! Look at the Chowbie Checker (as Pier and I like to call him)! Look at how he lights up without hesitation and what exuberance he has. Look at his little, illuminating soul that is not unlike our own.
We glow like the stars. We glow like the moon. Let’s all drop everything and stand in awe of the light. It’s a light we recognize at our core. It’s easier to see in the sheer meatiness of Wake, but I see it in the man helping me. So, I found myself lying on the ground among very normal, respectable people. Dignified, really. I’ve traded my dignity in these days, and I don’t mind. I prefer it, actually. It reminds me that dignity is not nearly so good as swimming in life. It’s the same feeling I had when I was running around in my cute, nude colored sandals at the park chasing my kids like I was seventeen. I like the dirt, the ground, and the grass between my toes. It reminds me that I am from the earth. It reminds me that my bones will be ashes someday. And that is so, so good to know now and to embrace it with shaking outstretched hands.
I have plans to reinstate a mud pit in our yard. At our last home (we moved four months ago to Seattle), we had a mud pit. It was a place behind our shed where water collected and a constant state of glop hovered. Our kids would ask at some point, usually by 10 in the morning, “Can we go in the mud pit today?” Of course you can go in the mud pit, I would think. “Can we wear just our underwear?” was the inevitable question that followed. The whoops and hollers that were heard across Bothell when I said, “Yes!” lit up the town. The Abenroth kids are about to not only be allowed to play in their own yard without their mom outside, but they also being allowed to get cold and muddy from head to toe in only their underwear.
Perhaps to others it seemed as though bedlum reigned on our property. On more than one occasion I heard a passerby ask, “Where is your mom and dad?” One time in particular I remember River responding, “I’m eight (he was 5 at the time) and my brother is 6 (Truss was 3). My mom and dad are at the store (we were inside, listening attentively), but we can handle ourselves.” So, after giving the all clear like I was an aircraft controller on the tarmac, my kids would turn on the hose, dam up the space with some extra dirt and mud, and the pig pen was on. After at least a couple hours of hearty play, I would call them to lunch. Time to hose down their splattered faces, mud ball hair, and glorious selves! What joy it was for them to frolic nude through the water. I kept them in the backyard when they stood in their full glory, but boy did they relish how good it felt to be free and alive and soak themselves in their entirety into the good earth. It was always an effort to get them to stand still enough for me to blast them with freezing cold water. I don’t blame them; I would rather be covered in mud than iced down with a fire hose. Their whoops and hollers resound in my mind. I wouldn’t trade those sweet, “I’m alive!” sounds for anything.
Since we have moved to Seattle, our TV sits unplugged in the basement, wedged between some mildewed chairs I plan on reupholstering someday and a kid’s pool table the old owners left. I am so happy about the deadness of the TV, I want to spin under the stars until I bore a hole in the ground with my feet. Some of this happiness arises because I don’t want to and can’t listen to the horrors of the day and then be okay with letting my kids outside. I actually let my children play in our yard, in the front, with no fence. And, here’s something even more astonishing: instead of telling my children to not talk to strangers, I encourage them to yell “Hi!” to people walking their dogs on our street, to wave fearlessly at cars that stop and let us cross, and to ask anyone that comes within twenty feet of our driveway whether they’d like a homemade muffin.
I’ve heard that some people don’t like four kids bounding toward them and yelling greetings. I haven’t met those people yet (and probably pretend they don’t exist so I can go right on waving my own arms), so we bake muffins on Saturday mornings to draw people in. We like people. I have taught my children about not getting into someone’s car when offered something tantalizing (like a new bike or ice cream or anything unbelievably good because really those people would hurt them very badly), just in case you feel like you need to instill some fear into my children. But, generally, people are good and my kids need to know that. Our neighbors emanate kindness. I can’t see why I should teach my children to shy away from people. I want to teach them to plunge into interacting and sorting out life fearlessly with others. And mostly, I think I’m giving them a much greater gift in handing them muffins and telling them to go break bread with a new friend that is now a part of our lives.
River spent the week before last in Walla Walla, running wildly and freely with his cousins. Gleefully he attended his first soccer camp and swam in the Walla Walla River at the “best swimming hole ever!” And, I’ve heard that Auntie Mel’s broccoli was so good he had seconds. When River returned home, he began remembering: the presence of cancer is in our house. “I wish Daddy’s neck didn’t feel numb. I wish Daddy didn’t have that big scar on his neck. I wish those staples were gone. I wish Daddy wasn’t so tired in the morning.” I wish that, too, River. Ned has been experimenting with different drugs to ease the shooting pain he feels through is neck. He hasn’t felt like his normal self since the surgery, We’ve gone to a Naturopathic Doctor last week who specializes in treating cancer. He was informative and helpful, encouraging and engaging. Perhaps most excitingly, he gave us the name of a cancer navigator. We’d never heard of such a thing until we talked to Halmut for an hour. Halmut has a PhD, is a fabulously big brained man, and is for hire. He learns about a cancer patient’s case, orders a myriad of genetic tests and then searches the scientific evidence for certain treatments and how they best pertain to a certain client. He believes 200 melanoma trials are being run currently in the United States and Europe and when we hire him, he will find which trials have the most promise for Ned. Ned and I have thought about living in a different country with our family for awhile now, and I joked that maybe Ned will finally get that chance, should a foreign country offer a drug that is not FDA approved.
Ned and the older boys have been at Grandpa George’s 100th birthday celebration in Walla Walla for the past several days. I know being there was so rejuvenating for Ned. Walla Walla has always been so restful for my man, and he was able to connect with cousins and family at length: that has left him feeling more like himself. He even played volleyball at Pioneer Park under giant sycamore trees for upwards of four hours. All the while, I kept myself rooted in Greenwood, prepared to start graduate school at the end of next week and looked to create an inner calm to guide me gently into this new space in all of our lives. At least, that’s my prayer. I will continue pursing my Masters of Counseling degree, so if you need me to do a little practice on you, I’m sure we could diagnose each other as utterly human. But, that’s only where we’d start.
I walked around Greenlake with a friend the other day. She started talking about her life and then began retracting her thoughts, “You have so much going on. I feel badly talking about things in my life that seem minor.” In fact, they weren’t minor. I don’t find anything that someone shares as being trivial. It’s a gift to me. Ned having cancer doesn’t negate other pain, it perhaps bridges the divide, and lets others know that we know heartache. We all do. And perhaps, instead of closing up, instead of the cancer providing an opportunity for people to back away and hide, it could launch us into honesty with one another. I think Ned’s cancer has left some people not knowing what to say, and I imagine if it gets really bad and Ned dies, some people will move away from us because it will bring up enormous feelings of helplessness. But, I can tell you something: we are not uncomfortable. This is our new normal. This is our life and we love each other. Perhaps this is the gift we have been given: to know that pain is an overwhelming, beckoning doorway towards life. It requires so much. Too much, it feels, sometimes.
But, what I’m banking on is that it’ll be worth it. Wise people have spoken of pain before. Ned isn’t the first young man to become ill, to fight cancer, and to have a modified radical neck dissection. Others have done this thing well, suffered well, become more open, more honest, and more in-touch individuals because of it. They have loved profoundly and their voices are our companions in knowing which way to go. Ned loves to feast on Rumi’s words and Mary Oliver’s poems have been my filet mignon lately. So I am stretching to stay open to what comes (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically) and remembering that while I was in labor with River, the mantra that came from my mouth during the most consuming, fiercest part of labor, was “Open. Open. Open.” And then I relaxed into it, and let it come.
All my love,
Jamie
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