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damontBit of a story to start this post.
When I was in first grade, back in New Jersey, I was befriended by a fourth grader. In retrospect this was weird as hell.
My world was, up to that point, mostly limited to my extended family and the families on our one-block-long street. Of the family members right in our neighborhood, I was the only one old enough to be in school yet; and while there were older kids on the block, they went to the Catholic school. So it's not like *they* would know any random fourth graders at the public school where I was attending. And fourth graders were on the second floor of the school, which was restricted to fourth grade and older ("You must be *this old* to ride this ride...") so it's not like we ever had a chance to see each other in passing, really. So it really was odd that this fourth grader should have any interest in hanging out with me. But he did, and being the sort of kid I was, I accepted this befriendment. We rarely saw each other except in the schoolyard before school; the timing of recesses and lunch hours meant we wouldn't cross paths then, and once school let out we were GONE. But for a year and change, this odd before-school friendship lasted.
Then for a month or so in the spring of second grade, I didn't see him in the schoolyard. Kids notice this stuff, but there were plenty of reasons why this might be -- including that his family might have moved away, something that was known to occur and that happened to ME three years later in the late winter of fifth grade.
But one morning the assistant principal sought me out before school.
Not that I had any idea why the assistant principal would have reason to know who I was, but I suspect he asked my teacher to point me out. Because he wanted to talk to me personally. And as gently as he could, he let me know that my friend had died; victim of an inoperable (by early 1970s standards anyway) brain tumor.
That was my first known exposure to cancer.
(It's possible that one of the two great-uncles who died when I was four years old had succumbed to cancer but I was too young at the time to be told any details. Deaths in the family before that, I was too young to remember, and there hadn't been any in the two-plus years since then. But I digress.)
Cancer has claimed the lives of many family members since then, and many friends as well. One of my undergrad classmates received his bachelor's degree posthomously thanks to cancer, that was a somber moment amongst the celebrations (and heavy rains). But while cancer has been a part of life pretty much all my life -- and while both my parents are cancer survivors, my mother more than once -- Big C had never hit this close to home since that sad morning in second grade. Until two and a half weeks ago.
My kid sister's husband was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2020. He went in for his first colonoscopy since he'd just turned 50 and there were no known genetic risk factors. But that test revealed not just colon cancer, but Stage 4 colon cancer. And what might have been lesions on his liver from the cancer having metastasized. Lots of medical intervention was attempted. And, amazingly, it appeared to work. John's "numbers" dropped to near zero. They kept at it, trying to balance beating down the cancer with the fact that the treatments basically wiped him out.
The whole California branch of the family came east for Eldest Niece's wedding last October. John looked okay but he certainly got tired easily. He had to head to bed pretty early during the post-dinner part of the reception, which we all accepted as just SOP at the time. Then at some point in early summer last year (I think), they discovered that the cancer had spread to his lungs. Treatments were continued to see what could be done, but if we had to be honest with ourselves, we were playing for time now. I was hoping he'd make it until this coming summer to see their second child (Eldest Nephew) graduate from high school.
That wasn't to be. Monday before Christmas my kid sister called to say he was being transferred to home hospice care. That Friday morning, in his favorite chair, he finally let go.
Obituary for John Anthony Soper
It's been a rough few weeks. Not how any of us wanted to spend our winter holidays. "Middle" sister and her husband are flying out to SoCal for the memorial service. Kiddo was up this past weekend and we have worked out how to get his Grandma's laptop to display on the big TV, so next Monday we can watch the memorial service livestream that my middle sister's husband is setting up.
And slowly -- VERY slowly -- life will rebalance. But there is a huge hole in the family, and achieving that rebalance will not be an easy road.
#fuckcancer
When I was in first grade, back in New Jersey, I was befriended by a fourth grader. In retrospect this was weird as hell.
My world was, up to that point, mostly limited to my extended family and the families on our one-block-long street. Of the family members right in our neighborhood, I was the only one old enough to be in school yet; and while there were older kids on the block, they went to the Catholic school. So it's not like *they* would know any random fourth graders at the public school where I was attending. And fourth graders were on the second floor of the school, which was restricted to fourth grade and older ("You must be *this old* to ride this ride...") so it's not like we ever had a chance to see each other in passing, really. So it really was odd that this fourth grader should have any interest in hanging out with me. But he did, and being the sort of kid I was, I accepted this befriendment. We rarely saw each other except in the schoolyard before school; the timing of recesses and lunch hours meant we wouldn't cross paths then, and once school let out we were GONE. But for a year and change, this odd before-school friendship lasted.
Then for a month or so in the spring of second grade, I didn't see him in the schoolyard. Kids notice this stuff, but there were plenty of reasons why this might be -- including that his family might have moved away, something that was known to occur and that happened to ME three years later in the late winter of fifth grade.
But one morning the assistant principal sought me out before school.
Not that I had any idea why the assistant principal would have reason to know who I was, but I suspect he asked my teacher to point me out. Because he wanted to talk to me personally. And as gently as he could, he let me know that my friend had died; victim of an inoperable (by early 1970s standards anyway) brain tumor.
That was my first known exposure to cancer.
(It's possible that one of the two great-uncles who died when I was four years old had succumbed to cancer but I was too young at the time to be told any details. Deaths in the family before that, I was too young to remember, and there hadn't been any in the two-plus years since then. But I digress.)
Cancer has claimed the lives of many family members since then, and many friends as well. One of my undergrad classmates received his bachelor's degree posthomously thanks to cancer, that was a somber moment amongst the celebrations (and heavy rains). But while cancer has been a part of life pretty much all my life -- and while both my parents are cancer survivors, my mother more than once -- Big C had never hit this close to home since that sad morning in second grade. Until two and a half weeks ago.
My kid sister's husband was first diagnosed with colon cancer in 2020. He went in for his first colonoscopy since he'd just turned 50 and there were no known genetic risk factors. But that test revealed not just colon cancer, but Stage 4 colon cancer. And what might have been lesions on his liver from the cancer having metastasized. Lots of medical intervention was attempted. And, amazingly, it appeared to work. John's "numbers" dropped to near zero. They kept at it, trying to balance beating down the cancer with the fact that the treatments basically wiped him out.
The whole California branch of the family came east for Eldest Niece's wedding last October. John looked okay but he certainly got tired easily. He had to head to bed pretty early during the post-dinner part of the reception, which we all accepted as just SOP at the time. Then at some point in early summer last year (I think), they discovered that the cancer had spread to his lungs. Treatments were continued to see what could be done, but if we had to be honest with ourselves, we were playing for time now. I was hoping he'd make it until this coming summer to see their second child (Eldest Nephew) graduate from high school.
That wasn't to be. Monday before Christmas my kid sister called to say he was being transferred to home hospice care. That Friday morning, in his favorite chair, he finally let go.
Obituary for John Anthony Soper
It's been a rough few weeks. Not how any of us wanted to spend our winter holidays. "Middle" sister and her husband are flying out to SoCal for the memorial service. Kiddo was up this past weekend and we have worked out how to get his Grandma's laptop to display on the big TV, so next Monday we can watch the memorial service livestream that my middle sister's husband is setting up.
And slowly -- VERY slowly -- life will rebalance. But there is a huge hole in the family, and achieving that rebalance will not be an easy road.
#fuckcancer
