The trophy H has returned to MrD from a one day trip to Toronto visiting the fabulous MsC whom I have known for more than 30 years. We have been friends; competitors; hormone focused teenage mutant high school classmates. In our twenties, we shared a basement apartment in Rosedale for a couple of years. We were estranged friends at the worst of times but up close and personal about it all. We share a story. It's all fodder for the fire.
This recent chapter MsC and I are writing seems to involve, no one’s favourite topics, cancer and dying. MsC is writing from her hospital room where family and friends juggle visiting hours or some kind hospital staff fetches her for another rousing round of radiation. (If you have not yet found your way to her honestly heroic blog, “The Clothes Line Saga”, then you must read it.
I only managed two opportunities to visit with MsC this trip. I did not want to over stay my welcome or wear it out. I spent the morning perched at or on the side of her tiny bed talking far too much about needless trifles while MsC could only whisper. Her illness has affected her vocal cords. She promised me it was not painful for her to talk but she can only whisper. Staff interrupted with important questions about bowel movements, oatmeal or cream of wheat and offers of more pain altering medications. I did massage her bum leg for a bit but in case MsC’s mom reads this I did not rub above the knee. I got to fetch MsC ice chips from the “Nourishment Room”, down the hall on the other side of the nurse’s station. She finds it hard to swallow water but the ice chips can easily melt on her tongue and also give her something to occupy her wretched time. The errand gave me a moment to feel that I was actually doing anything useful in this nightmarish setting.
I had brought, what I thought, were totally useless gifts like a hand painted Japanese cocktail dress and a tiara. The diva dress was put on hold to go with martinis some other time. MsC had recently lost the use of her left dancing leg when the cancer had taken a tacky taste of her spine. However the tiara was found useful and went into immediate use and fit MsC perfectly.
I had fashioned a fragile crown from a bent silver wire, an off centered beaten looking heart between two lumpy loops, where huge diamonds or emeralds, should, but did not glimmer. All too soon my exhausted friend had me hang up her tiara in the sunny window and shooed me out the door so she could actually get some real work done.
I returned in the afternoon with a small bag of fruit in my hand. I entered the room and found my friend asleep, her thin pale white face on her pillow, slightly uplifted in her dreams, like I had remembered it thirty odd years ago. I was ten years old,hiding outside in my fourth grade school yard, in the bushes; either from the bullies, or doing them. I recalled watching MsC’s mother help her across the street from their house to our school. Msc was born with scoliosis.
MsC was nine. I was ten. We have been more or less friends ever since and always will be until death do us part and one day more.
I did not awaken MsC. She seldom gets any rest with the pain and discomfort her body is going through. I stood quietly in the corner of the hospital room. I let a few fond memories run by while I watched my poor tired and wasted ill friend sleep in comfort. MsC, as usual, looked rather grand, noble and at peace, all things considering,
It was hard to leave my sleeping pal without saying goodbye in words. I left the fruit on the bedside chair with a hurried note. I blew one more air kiss to MsC. Her new tiara hung on a framed photo of her with her real family.
Outside, the cold afternoon Toronto sun shone upon us all. I drifted back to my hotel, did a trophy H pack up, checked out, grabbed a limo, did the airport thing and flew home to MrD without my usual shopping or stopping.
