by Leslie Brody
How I loved those emails. I was addicted to their ardor. I hated to envision a time I would have to get by without them. Stop it, I told myself. Don’t go there.
We had a trip for two planned on the way to picking up Alex from camp in New Hampshire in August. We stopped for a few days at our favorite bed and breakfast, the Old Inn on the Green in New Marlborough, Massachusetts. We took long walks, long baths and long naps. We visited our friend Linda’s country house nearby. She and her fiancé had an orchard and we picked a perfect peach. It was so beautiful we couldn’t bear to eat it. For days we just admired it on the mantel by our bed at the inn. I splurged on a forty-five dollar set of colored pencils just so I could sketch that lovely piece of fruit. I spent hours on its portrait while Elliot slept. Looking carefully at the peach’s delicate round shape, with its soft oranges, pinks and greens, was so calming that I felt time slow down. My breath got softer. It was almost like meditation. I felt a rare sense of peace in that room, with my husband resting and my whole body relaxed.
It struck me that the day marked the two-year anniversary of Elliot’s diagnosis. His doctors had predicted that by this time he probably wouldn’t be with us anymore. But he was still here with me, and we were happy.
I’m proud of my drawing that day, it came out well. And once it was finished, we bit into that idyllic peach. It was the sweetest, juiciest one I had ever tasted. It dribbled down our chins and we licked away its nectar with the purest kind of contentment. We live for moments like this.
The next day we spent a glorious sunny afternoon biking around Lake Winnapesaukee, fantasizing about the houses we would buy someday. Who would think a man in Elliot’s condition could do that? Maybe we could carry on like this for a long while, I thought, ricocheting between emergency rooms and romantic adventures. Maybe we had much more time than the doctors ever thought.
On good days we were determined to be cheerful. Sometimes Max and Kate brought over their Lhasa Apso, Mookie, to keep Elliot company when he was working from home. Alex was tickled to come into the kitchen one day to find Elliot dancing around with Mookie in his arms, singing old show tunes.
When we were exhausted, though, despair could creep its way in.
“I’m so tired,” Elliot wrote from his office in late August. “I just felt like I was going to collapse…and I hate limping around here at work. I feel so conspicuous. I hate it.”
“I love you,” I wrote back. That was all I could think of to say. I refused to lie or spout false optimism. Anything fake would feel like a wall between us.
“I can’t keep limping around here. I won’t do that. I feel like I have a sign around my neck that says cancer patient.”
The pain specialist kept upping the doses. They made Elliot so drowsy that he started to fall asleep as soon as we started kissing at night. Elliot was crushed but determined to fix the problem. It affected the core of his sense of self as a man. I loved that he still cared so passionately about this kind of connection, and it amazed me that it took so long for his mountains of drugs to get in the way. He soldiered on, unwavering in his mission to find opportunities to please. He refused to give up life’s greatest rewards.
“I’m feeling a bit lightheaded, edgy, but the methadone seems to have blunted the pain substantially, so how can I complain?” he emailed me one day. “Only problem is that… ‘other problem,’ which I’m confident we can overcome with time and patience. Because as powerful as these meds are, my love for you is stronger by far. I think you knew that…”
One day Elliot forgot his jacket on the train, fell down the station stairs and almost stepped into the gap between the subway and the platform. It was clear he was getting too spacey for the commute. I kept suggesting that if he didn’t like to work at home, we should find a carpool or hire a taxi. It turned out Bloomberg would pay for one, but he didn’t want to be treated like an invalid. His obstinacy was an asset in fighting this disease but it could also keep him from accepting practical solutions.
Elliot clung to the shards of denial as much as he could. I couldn’t afford to. As much as I wanted to stay in the present, and appreciate every minute of our time together, I had to think ahead too. I was the one who made sure we updated our wills and health care proxies. I was the one who had to calculate whether I could stay in our house with my kids on just my income. I was the one who Googled articles on helping kids cope with bereavement because I’d be the one left behind to deal with their devastation. I was the one who might need to initiate getting help from hospice; he would never make that move. It would signal giving up. I thought about doing some research on local hospices just in case, maybe even writing a newspaper article about them as a way to check out a few places, but that seemed sneaky. If I went scouting out deathbeds behind Elliot’s back, and he found out about it, he would be shattered.
“Hope for the best,” my doctor told me at a checkup, “but prepare for the worst.”
When Elliot’s third pair of chemo drugs failed to help, he agreed to try an experimental one. Until now he was reluctant to be a “guinea pig” but had no real options left. He was scheduled to start a trial of a pill called Brevanib in mid-September.
“How many more ways can I show/tell you I love you?” he slugged an email in early September. “I’m drifting off again. But you’re all I think about lately. Well, you and that pill I’ll be taking in a week or so. But I try not to think about that, so more/most of my thoughts are amorous ones about you. We should hop a plane to Paris, book a week at the Agora Saint Germain, line up in the morning at Eric Kayser’s boulangerie, and while away the afternoons at the Luxembourg Gardens or the Grand Palais, leave time for a nap (definitely!) then dinner at Les Pipos. I see the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay and the Picasso Museum are collaborating on a massive Picasso show that runs from October till February of next year. He’s not my favorite, but in small doses, and certain periods, I do enjoy.”
Elliot had always reveled in his vivid fantasy life. At least he still had that.
CELEBRATION
September 2008
“It is always like this: The best parties are thrown by people in trouble.”
Amy Bloom, Away
The doctors didn’t say how bad things were getting, and Elliot didn’t ask, but it was clear. So I decided to throw a party.
I am my mother’s daughter that way. In a crisis, she opts for diversion. Once when I was little we got into a jam on my parents’ sailboat. The wind died and the engine failed and we couldn’t get out of a dangerous spot in a tricky harbor. The Coast Guard officers who came to tow us to safety must have been baffled to find that while we were waiting to be rescued, my mother had put out wine and cheese.
There was more to my party plan than mere distraction. I kept thinking of a friend at work, Pat Gilbert, a young mother who had died several years earlier. So many people came to her funeral—reporters, neighbors, relatives—and it seemed such a shame that all these friends who cared about her were there, but the one person who connected them all was not. I couldn’t bear the idea that someday all the people who loved Elliot might be gathered in one room without him. If they were going to come together for his sake, I wanted Elliot to be there, and I wanted him to enjoy it.
I envisioned something warm and casual but classy, with good food and music that allowed for real conversation. My hands were too full to cook for a crowd, but Taro was the right size for about sixty people. We could take over the whole restaurant. It had a calm space with elegant bamboo stalks stretching up to its high ceiling, white tablecloths with pink and purple flowers, and gold candlelight reflecting off mirrors. That’s where we ate a few nights after Elliot’s diagnosis, when I’d seen a couple on an awkward first date and hoped to the highest heavens that I’d never be in that position again.
Of course I couldn’t couch this party as a pre-funeral. I pitched it to Elliot as a thank-you dinner for all the friends who had helped us for so long, bringing us dinners, driving the kids, making us laugh.
I was sincere in my gratitude; it wasn’t only a ruse, and he smiled at the idea. Even so, he divined my deeper motivation. When I asked him if he wanted to have toasts, he shook his head no.
“Save the eulogies,” he said.
It was hard to settle on a date. I was eager to have the party as soon as possible, but so many friends were away on summer vacation that hosting it in late August seemed to defeat the purpose. I wondered what kind of shape Elliot would be in if we held off until September but waiting seemed worth the risk. I booked Taro for an early dinner on the first Sunday after Labor Day. Unfortunately Max would be back in Ithaca by then, but I didn’t think this could be delayed until his fall break in October.
We sent out sky blue invitations with a big maroon “thanks” in the middle. Practically everyone we invited said yes. They understood my intent. I think many were touched by such a tangible gesture of appreciation. People are starving for signs they are truly valued. My one regret was that I couldn’t invite my loyal book club buddies and their husbands too, but that would add sixteen people, and Elliot was starting to feel intimidated by the size of the guest list.
I went to Taro one morning to discuss the menu with the manager, Charlie, a balding Chinese man whose face was lined with deep wrinkles. I got fixated on fretting about how eight large tables should be arranged around the room. I wanted to be certain that during first hour of appetizers and drinks, there would be space for people to mingle.
“Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “We’ve done this many times before. It will be fine.”
I almost kissed the man. When was the last time anyone had said “don’t worry” to me? It was a relief to leave the details to him, to delegate, to trust it really would work out. All I had to do was provide the music and dessert.
That would be easy. Baking was Kate’s forte. She always made such incredible grand finales for family holidays – a tart piled with raspberries and blackberries, homemade gelato with spiced walnuts, or everybody’s all-time favorite, pumpkin bread pudding laced with chocolate. Her best recipes were her own inventions.
“How would you feel about making dessert for this party?” I asked her. “About sixty people? I know that’s a lot of work.”
“Sure,” she said without hesitation.
“Thank you so much. It will mean so much to Elliot. And to me.”
This party became a whole family effort. Kate’s boyfriend, Anthony, helped us find a jazz guitarist. Aaron, who flew in from Chicago with his girlfriend, Sallie, for the occasion, drove to Washington Heights to pick up Elliot’s mother. Devon volunteered to take pictures. Alex agreed to take care of the one little boy who would be there. I found out later that Elliot’s first wife, to her great credit, helped Kate finish making mountains of apple pastries, chocolate walnut tarts and blondies, even though she wasn’t invited. It would have felt awkward to have Janet there, but she contributed nonetheless.
It was a swell party. Elliot looked tan and handsome in a loose blue plaid linen shirt that hid his bony ribs. His face shined with delight as friends came over for a hug or a handshake or a pat on the back.
“Hey, Elliot,” said one after another. “You look good.”
As we all sat down to Chilean sea bass, coconut shrimp and filet mignon, I found my spot next to my husband and took a moment to survey the tables. Everyone was clinking wine glasses, catching up and laughing. Many were journalists abuzz with the weekend’s news that Lehman Brothers was about to file for bankruptcy. The global financial markets were about to implode, but all I cared about was celebrating that we’d made it this far. Most of the time we’d lived awfully well. I felt a warm rush of awe at the enormous generosity of these friends who had helped us get through so much.
There were Maggie and John, who mailed us the keys to their country house in Little Compton, Rhode Island, so we could escape to the ocean for a weekend. There was Linda, who, the minute she heard we were bored with the DVD shelf at the chemo clinic, Fed Exed the whole first season of Mad Men. There was Henry, who entertained Elliot at work with a running series of emails that were sympathetic, amusingly kvetchy and risqué. There were my editors who let me switch my work days around willy-nilly whenever I wanted to accommodate kids or medical crises. There were friends who picked up Elliot’s prescriptions in the city, or took him to baseball games, or gave me bubble bath when I seemed on the verge of collapse. And there were the ones who were simply always with us, like Pam, Dick, Lynn and Robert.
There was my sister too. There had been times when we weren’t as close as we both would have liked but she absolutely stepped up to the plate when Elliot got sick. She checked on us by phone and visited when she could. Once, a few months before this party, I called her in exhausted depression.
“I’m knocking myself out taking care of Elliot and what is it going to get me?” I whined. “Nothing. One day all this will end and I’ll be alone. Then what am I going to do? So I’m a good cancer wife, big deal. I can’t exactly put that on my resume.”
“I don’t see it that way at all,” Jessie said calmly. “What could possibly be more important than taking care of someone you love who needs you? What is more meaningful than that?”
Hearing her say that meant so much to me. I appreciated the way she kept calling to let me vent. Because that’s the thing with cancer. It can drag on an awfully long time. It’s the true blue friends who keep calling and cooking and coming by. They don’t shy away. They don’t assume they will be intruding.
“Don’t be afraid to get closer,” the social worker had told me. The friends in this restaurant had lived by her words without ever hearing them. There was a certain grace in their collective spirit of kindness. It felt profound, and authentic, and made my heart full.
“You could feel the outpouring of love in that room,” Linda wrote me later. There was pride too. Elliot’s mother beamed at the sight of so many people who had driven from Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connecticut to join us. Even at her age, a mother loves to see that her child has good friends. Elliot was proud of Kate’s desserts. And I was proud to see my children and his all staked out seats together even though the older ones could have split off to eat with grownup family friends. They made for a cute kiddie table.
Near the end of dinner, Elliot and I stood up to say a few words. Devon caught Elliot’s on video.
“My shrink says the trick to this is finding the balance between hope and depression,” he said slowly, carefully, looking down shyly.
(“Elliot sees a shrink?” Alex’s voice asks in the background.)
“Everyone in this room,” Elliot continued, “has helped me do that in one way or another. So thank you, all of you.”
WHERE’S ROGER?
October 2008
We were so used to talking, joking and writing emails to each other that I worried some kind of distance might grow between us if we lost that verbal connection, if his mind became foggy. It was a terrible thing to see looming.
A preview came one Sunday night in October. We were having dinner at Beacon, a sleek restaurant off Fifth Avenue, after seeing Speed the Plow, a David Mamet play about manipulative Hollywood agents. I’d gotten tickets to take our minds off the next morning’s Sloan-Kettering appointment, when we would find out whether Elliot’s liver could tolerate more chemotherapy. Good news seemed unlikely.
The waiter pushed the prix fixe dinner that started with a sizzling plate of a half-dozen roasted oysters. They smelled garlicky and delicious, and since they were cooked we ignored our usual concern about exposing Elliot to the potential germs in shellfish. We ate them all with gusto. Then the steak course came. Halfway through, Elliot looked around the table.
“Where are the oysters?” he asked suddenly.
“We had them,” I answered, puzzled.
“Really?” He paused. “Huh.”
We kept eating.
“Where’s Roger?” he asked, his brow knit in confusion. We hadn’t seen his old friend in over a year. There was absolutel
y no reason for Roger to show up that night.
“I’m not sure, Sweetie,” I said. “Maybe he’s at home.”
When we finished, I reached for the check—who knew what bizarre thing Elliot might write if he tried to sign the bill. As spacey as he was, he still questioned my calculation of the tip. That made me smile, but I was nervous. As we walked back to our hotel, Eriq La Salle, the tall black actor who played a sullen loner of a surgeon on ER for years, passed by. I wondered what he would tell me to do, as if he had any medical know-how in real life.
The next morning Elliot seemed lucid again, but he took forever to shower and dress. His leg hurt as he hobbled toward the outpatient clinic. His stomach was roiling. There was little I could do to but hold his hand.
“I wanted to make love to you so much this weekend,” Elliot said. “What happened? The days just slipped by. I was so tired. I love you. That’s one thing I can say. I’ve said it a million times.”
We had to wait forever to see the doctor. He had bad news.
“The tumor is not so well controlled,” he said in a blatant euphemism. He wanted another CT scan within a week.
We begged the scheduler to squeeze in Elliot that afternoon so we wouldn’t have to make a return trip to the city. Luckily there was an opening at 2:00 p.m. In the waiting room I flipped through irritatingly cheerful magazines—“flat abs in thirty days!”—and couldn’t focus. The CT scan was taking more than an hour, much longer than usual. School was over so I called home to check on the kids. They were arguing about whose turn it was to unload the groceries that had just been delivered. Such banal minutia offered a welcome escape.
Anxious to get home before dinner, I pushed my way into the CT scan suite to find out what was taking so long.
“There’s a blood clot in his lung,” a nurse said. “The radiologist has to look at past scans to see if it’s a new one.”
