Fun with Cancer

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I never understood the seriousness of her illness.  In fact, throughout my mother’s treatments and surgeries, I only recall the thrill of eating candy and watching the exotic fish swim happily in their large tank at the chemo administering office, eating t.v. dinners and seeing musicals at the Fox in down- town St. Louis with my dad, and getting a million beautiful flowers placed all over our house.  

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, or my reaction when I was told of my mother’s ailment; in fact, the memory of the entire time when my mom was sick is all pretty hazy.  However, the few things that I do remember are as clear as day.  I suppose I was about 8 or 9 years old, my family and I had just moved and we were ready to enjoy our first summer at our newly built house. 

My mom was a very healthy person, she had quit smoking 3 years before and had lost over 60 pounds; her diagnosis was completely unexpected and took the family by surprise.  I remember the first surgery.  Mom had a lump in her breast, a small benign tumor that needed to be removed; this is when the doctors found a malignant growth hiding behind the benign tumor.

I was sick with a cold when my mom was taken into surgery.  So, without any other options at such short notice, I went to the hospital with my mom and dad.  I sat there with my father, fully equipped with coloring and activity books and my old Nintendo game boy, in the waiting room while my mom was being operated on.  I never thought that anything would ever go wrong with my mother’s surgery, all I knew was that I didn’t have to go to school and I got to have lunch at the hospital cafeteria.  I was thrilled.      

It wasn’t long before word of my mother’s diagnosis got out.  This is when flowers, balloons and other plants began arriving at our new house.  I thought all of these beautiful plants and balloons to be a perfect addition to our home.  Soon the gifts of plants began to overflow into my room; I thought the flowers made my room look like a jungle and I loved them.  To this day my mother, reminded of her chemotherapy, will get queasy looking at flowers, while I’m reminded of the wonderful smell and decoration that they added to our home.

I was not old enough to be left home by myself (and my parents weren’t about to leave me in my older brother’s hands — they did this once and returned finding two kids with their arms around each other’s necks and the house turned upside down) when my mother was diagnosed.  So, every first and third week of the month I accompanied my parents to St. Anthony’s Medical Center for my mother’s treatment.  I remember that I wasn’t thrilled at first when my parents forced me to sit in a waiting room and do my homework while watching other depressed cancer patients drag in and out for their treatments — until I noticed a large fish tank filled with beautiful exotic fish and various sea anemones.  Instantly I forgot my boredom (as well as my homework) and focused on the fish.  I was hypnotized by the swirling colors and graceful movement of the animals.  Every chemo treatment I looked forward to watching these creatures, and I never seemed to notice my mother’s discomfort.

Eventually, I noticed that in the treatment room, where my mom was hooked to an I. V. delivering the toxic medicine into her veins, there were small dishes of candy placed all around the room. Obviously these were for the cancer patients, but the nurses and other employees never objected to me helping myself.  The nurses saw me as a poor little girl whose mother had cancer — all I saw were fish, nice old ladies, and candy. 

I never saw much of my mom during her bout with cancer.  Most of the time she was huddled like a scared turtle in its shell, under her blankets locked away in her bedroom.  So, she did not do much cooking.  This meant I got to eat whatever I wanted.  T.V. dinners became my main diet.  I missed my mom cooking for me, but the fact that the T.V. dinner came with a chocolate brownie and icing made up for my mom and dad forcing me to eat my vegetables.       

     Through the eyes of a child the most depressing and stressful situations can be seen as an opportunity to find joy.  Events similar to my mother’s bout with breast cancer are only scary and depressing because we are taught, with age, to see it as such.  With an optimistic outlook even the threat of death can be seen as something happy and enlightening. 

Playing God and Raising Ducks

I have always wanted to have pet ducks for as long as I can remember.  My dad had a pet duck when he was little, which is what sparked my interest in the waterfowl.  In fact, remembering the joy Peepers (Dad’s duck) brought to his childhood, is why my father decided that I could have a duck of my own.

  About twelve years ago on an early, cold March morning I spied two greenish, ivory colored duck eggs at a live stock market in Waterloo, Illinois.  Mist was rolling off the winter wheat fields and the air smelled of cow manure and hay.  Sounds of cows mooing, horses neighing, pigs grunting, chickens clucking, and ducks quacking filled the crisp air.  The two eggs were sitting on top of a wire cage filled with mallard drakes and hens quacking inquisitively and fluttering their wings, the ducks were packed so tightly in the cages their movements almost knocked the small enclosures over. 

After a little pleading, I convinced my dad to ask for the eggs.  I decided I wanted to hatch a baby duck.  The owner of the eggs, not thinking they were fertile, (and thinking my dad was a little strange — who would want two duck eggs when you can have an actual duck, already hatched and ready to go?) gave them to my dad for free.  I was overjoyed.  When my dad and I got home we set up a small incubator (the same incubator my dad had hatched his duck in forty years earlier) for my two duck eggs.  The wait for my ducks to hatch was excruciating.

            Days and days passed until on warm afternoon late April, I found a crack in one of the eggs.  I could not have been happier, the joy I felt as a ten-year-old girl was overwhelming.  I was so thrilled one hatched, I forgot about the other, silent, motionless egg sitting next to the now empty eggshell. 

Exhausted and wet my duck wobbled around the incubator like a fish out of water.  I was amazed at its size.   This duckling was at least twice the size of the egg he had just hatched out of.  I never thought his size would hender his health — I was just happy the poor exhausted duck made it out of the egg. 

 I named him Cheerio.  A name that made perfect sense coming from the mind of a ten-year-old; a mallard hen was brown, just  like a cheerio.  So, I took a leap of faith and hoped that Cheerio was a girl, and that she would be brown, cheerio-colored hen.  Of course, fate other plans and later in life I would discover that Cheerio was in fact a boy, when he began to grow tail feathers and his head turned a greenish hue; Cheerio would be a drake.

The next day the other egg hatched; this was Hercamer.  Although a little premature she was a healthy duckling.  Ironically, I had hoped Hercarmer would be a boy, but Hercamer began to lay eggs that next spring, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt she really was a girl.

Hercamer and Cheerio were inseparable.  They  rooted through grass, swam in a child’s wading pull my dad bought at Wal-Mart, got muddy in the drainage ditch, and ate dog food right out of our labrador retriever’s bowl.  Cheerio was a pig.  Hercamer enjoyed her dog food, Cheerio would inhale it in a matter of seconds.

Cheerio became fat in no time; but I considered him to be a healthy duck.  In winter the extra fat kept him warm and in the summer he was active — until one summer a bee stung him on his foot.  This hurt Cheerio more than I expected.  I suppose the venom of a bee sting is more toxic to a duck ten times smaller than a human.  None the less Cheerio recovered, but he lived with a limp to the day he died. 

That winter Cheerio’s limp from his bee sting got worse.  Eventually, when I let the ducks out to forage, Cheerio stayed by the pen while Hercamer would go swim or root through the grass alone in the cold. Cheerio sat all day by his pen tired and lonely.  Hercamer would sit next to him most of the time, but even she had to leave her mate to preen herself in the water.

Other ducks that I had introduced to the flock (Fred, Ethel, Lucy, and Desi) considered Cheerio their ”fearless leader” (after all, he was the largest of the ducks), but, with Cheerio hurt, they were falling apart as a flock.  Desi was getting daily beatings from the other aggressive ducks (Fred and Ethel) and the aggressive ducks were getting out of control.  

If you have never been around chickens, ducks, geese, or even horses, you don’t know that these animals establish a pecking order and any minute change will disrupt the hierarchy and actually cause chaos among the animals.  So, I was contemplating getting rid of some of my precious ducks simply to eleviate the tension caused by Cheerio’s absence as the dominant leader in the pecking order.  But, ever hopeful, I kept a watchful eye on the troublemakers and kept the entire flock. 

On December 31st, 2001, Cheerio died.  He was a big duck, maybe he had an enlarged heart, and his immune system couldn’t handle the bee sting.  I miss Cheerio, and Hercamer never stopped quacking for her life-long mate, hoping he would return her forlorn pleas. 

In a way, I feel responsible for her misery since it was my intervention that changed two forgotten duck eggs into a pair of live creatures. 

However, I think of all the joy they have brought to my life and the joy they would never know, had I not done so.  I have discovered that death should be valued as much as life.  For death is the mirror that reflects the joys of life.

 I have added four more ducks to the flock since the birth of Cheerio.  Today, I look out into my two and half acre yard and see Hercamer leading a line of five ducks from digging hole to watering hole as Cheerio once did, and restoring order to the flock once again.

Music Mondays: Defining Piety

I love music, it’s another one of my passions–over the the years I’ve become proficient at piano and french horn.  And I think you can learn a lot about a person by what kind of music they listen to.  

In fact, about six months ago, a colleague and I at the lab where I work,  started sharing two pieces of music from our personal libraries on a weekly basis for fun and in hopes to broaden our musicality.  At first, finding songs was rather easy.  However, as the months passed, finding unique music, that was unfamiliar to the other person was becoming more and more challenging.

I introduced the American Songbook, Chopin, Irving Berlin, and my favorite rock group, The Beatles, to my friend.  He introduced me to 80’s Big Hair Rock…I never knew there was such a plethora of  electric guitar, head banging rock songs. 

Anyway, over the Christmas holiday my friend suggested we share our favorite Christmas music and I agreed.  This is when, I think, we both learned the most about each other, after listening to our music selections of course.

It being the week of Christmas and the fact that, most likely songs of a religious, Christian nature were going to be shared, it could only be assumed that religion was going to be discussed.  

I consider religion to be an extremely private, personal matter, and was raised never to talk about two things in polite society (let alone in a professional work environment).  One was politics, and the other was religion.  So, because of this and other reasons, I refrain from discussing politics and/or religion in public settings among strangers and of course never at work. 

So when my friend decided he wanted to share Christmas music I brought in the first thing that came to my mind: Have Yourself a Swingin’ Christmas by Ella Fitzgerald, a CD that is 100% secular, and The Messiah, by Frederich Handel.  I love Handel’s Messiah, I consider it a masterpiece and I think we will never hear another piece of music equal to Handel’s score.  (Of course, I say that about a lot of music).  Handel also considered himself extremely pious.  He was Christian, and extremely dedicated to serving the church and his god, and this is reflected in his compositions, including his The Messiah. 

Undoubtedly, my colleague is a devout Christian.  This was indisputably discovered when he touted my completely secular Ella Fitzgerald Christmas CD.  (Although, I myslf am enthralled with Gregorian chants and other such beautiful religious works such as Handel’s Messiah and I find it odd, that a Christian, such as my colleugue knows nothing more of Handel’s score past the Hallelujah chorus, but I digress, as my upbringing was one in which music was just, if not more important than religion). It was during this session my friend looked at me as my CD was loading, or perhaps I was in the middle of lecturing him on the history of Handel, and he asked me, “Are you pious, Molly Bechtel?”  Immediately I was reminded of the Five Dialogues of Plato, I thought he was joking, I said in reply, “Define pious.”  As if to be clever, but to no avail.

I love my friend and I am not trying to nay-say him or others of his faith.  I try to maintain an open mind and respect others’ beliefs that are different from my own.  However, I find it infinitely intriguing that someone who considers himself so pious can be so ignorant of some of the most beautiful music ever made and in honor of his faith.  I do think Socrates, as according to Plato had the right idea…because what is pious?  It’s definitely not defined by what music you listen to or how much you know about a certain genre of music.   I think piety is defined by your willingness to help others and our ability to maintain an open mind (something, in my case, our music sessions has definitely tested).  

But back to the sharing of music…if nothing else, music has managed to teach my colleague and I, tolerance and therefore taught us piety.  Learning piety has taught myself that connections can be found in any relationship when approached with an open mind.  Most importantly, because of these “sharing sessions” I have developed a friendship that I hope will last long after I leave the lab I’m currently working at to go to grad school.   

Sex – a young woman’s perspective

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But what if women had “sex like men?”  Would that make them any less powerful?  Would it change the way  our society looks at them?  Should it change the way our society looks at them?

I refuse to believe that if all women were guided by their emotions and not by their physical “needs” it would make them better people, or bring rape to the eyes of the rest of the world as being the heinous, disgusting, inexcusable crime it truley is.  In fact, I don’t think it’s fair that women are judged differently because of the amount of emotion they usually put into sexual relationships, but I digress… 

I’m trying to say that if a woman wants to have physical, emotionless sex she should, and should not be questioned.  Cathirine Millet, author of The Sexual Life of Catherine M. found her true-self through sexual freedom.  She lost her virginity as a young woman and began going to orgies, of course, never fulfilling herself emotionally, but amazed to discover that women could have more than one partner and experience the freedom that she, obviously did.  Her various sexual incounters became a quest which ended with her success as an editor of a prestigious French art magizine and happily (monogamously) married.

Individuality plays a role in both men and women’s decisions to have sex; I think society needs to let all of us decide for ourselves.  

Who I am and why I’m Here.

So far this blog has been more or less a ”free balling” site for my freedom of expression.  No structure, no goals, just a place for me to vent and post “pretty” prose and poems and the occasional and somewhat angry, creative essay and do so practically annonymously.  

So.   Why am I here?  Who am I?  Is this just a place for me to express myself?  I’ve always loved writing.  Ever since I learned to write the alphabet, to hold a pencil, I was writing stories.  In fact, in first grade, after writing and illustrating a book of my own and reading it to the class, I unwittingly encouraged the rest of the class to become amateure authors.  My love and talent of writing followed me through middle school and high school, where at a rather unique private high school in an old furniture store in southern Illinois, I met the one person who would influence my writing more than anyone else.  It was there as a hormonal teenager and because of that high school english teacher that I started writing.

Now, a senior in College, majoring in animal science (I have many passions in my life, and eventually I had to chose which was the most in important, obviously, animals are closest to my heart), I’ve realized I don’t want to throw my passion to the curb.  But it’s more than that, writing is an outlet for me as woman.  I work in the science industry, a chauvanistic industry ran by men, I live in a patriarchy; names, money, as much as we deny it, everything is passed down and owned by men.  And I am just trying to find my voice as a woman.             

12

The sky is a milky blue

A few bold stars linger as the sun creeps into view 

A stellar jay screeches in the distance, quail chatter as they appear from their roosts

The air smells new, clean; and I feel reassured by the salubrious scents, promises of the new day.

Morning passes, the day ages, afternoon breezes usher in hot, sweet air…

The sun sits high in the sky, looking upon the earth as if it will never set. 

Yet, the sun sinks into the west, and a new appreciation comes with evening. 

 Evening is calm; the air is filled with cool scents of sage and pinion. 

Memories of the day past are embraced as evening is enveloped by the ebony blanket of night.

My Secret Hide-Away

When I was a little girl, I remember I could never wait for summer time.  My birthday was in December, but so was my brother’s; so my parents, being the responsible frugal adults they still are today…and have therefore raised me to be–but that’s another story…meshed my birthday, my brother’s birthday, and on special years, Christmas, all on one day.  So summer was my season.  I couldn’t wait to take off my shoes and spend all day outside running in the grass catching toads and chasing June bugs. 

But my most cherished memories of summer time are those I spent at my grandpa’s cabin in Montock, Missouri.  Almost every summer, from the time I was 8-months-old till I was 14-years-old, my family and I would drive 3 hours from the small Illinois town where we lived to my grandpa’s small, one room cabin set in the Missouri Ozarks.  I would spend a week or two traipsing among forests of ancient oak trees, walking barefoot in ice cold creeks, catching lizards, snakes, toads, and turtles.     

Suddenly, the world I knew of parents, rules, school, homework, peer-pressure, was far, far behind me and I entered an enchanted fairy-tale-world filled with starry nights, calico clouded days, and never ending adventures. 

I was lucky to have this secret hide-away as a child, I was even luckier to have the grandpa I had to provide it for me.  In middle school, when girls my age were painting their faces with lipgloss and eyeshadow, I was busy being outside with my dog or even preparing for the next science fair, which for me usually involved some new innovation in conservation.  This small cabin in the woods was a refuge the harsh criticism I tolorated on a daily basis among my peers.

I was one of the few kids that enjoyed childhood to the fullest, I drew it out for as long as possible.  I remember the last trip I made with my family to my grandpa’s cabin.  It was the happiest I had ever been; the most carefree.  I’ve tried again and again to reclaim that feeling, even when I’m riding my horse, I can’t seem to capture it.  The magic of that place seemed to die with my grandpa, it will always be remembered, but can never be relived. 

In Memorium…

The sun seemed to hang in the west forever. Clouds shrouded the mountains and from inside you could hear the wind whistling through the desert as the next storm was moving through.  The telephone rang and pierced through the sound of the shrieking wind.   I sat in my room and thought about my grandpa’s life.  I thought of his childhood and the wonderful stories he would tell me about wild animal friends he’d bring home to a disgruntled father, I thought about his teens and his first driving lesson in a model T;  and even his fatherhood, diligently performing fatherly duties like providing a roof and bread for his family. I even thought of once-in-a-lifetime chances he passed up: how instead of enjoying a career as a professional ball player, Grandpa signed up in 1945 with Uncle Kenny.  I thought about what my grandpa got out of his life, what he really wanted and how happy he was to provide for his children and grandchildren.  Grandpa wanted to see his family happy.  From his two sons, Charles and Jim, he loved dearly and cherished to the day he died, and his daughters-in-law, Martha and Gayle, he loved as his own, to his grandchildren and great grandchildren he overwhelmed with cards stuffed with dollar bills and candy and trinkets for every occasion.  This is what my grandpa wanted out of life, not a major league baseball career or a lapel filled with war medals; but his family: safe, happy and cared for.  My thoughts were suddenly interrupted.  Mom handed me the phone, it was Dad calling from work he said Grandpa died peacefully in his sleep that afternoon.  The sun set, the wind calmed, the clouds uncloaked the mountains, revealing the timeless icons in all their glory, standing silently, proudly in the west. 

Thoughts of Discontent

Thoughts of discontent

Swirl in my head

An obnouxious pain

Stabs me in the gut

It aches as I meditate in my prison walls…

I long to free the song bird trapped within my soul;

Buried deep below the surface of flesh and blood; It struggles so, to be free

Alas, I continue to be lost in my thoughts of discontent.

Spooked Horse

Why can’t I focus?

I’m lost, I’m totally, utterly lost.

Why should I give them the honor of immortalizing them?!

I hate them.

Hate, Hate.

Where am I?

I disappear:

Like a spooked horse I run from situations that overwhelm me.