Half Life - 32 - elephant

Half Life - 32 – elephant

June 4th, 2021

Removing the elephant in the house has made the rooms significantly easier to navigate and breathing easier. By the end of the hardest conversation we have ever had with The Boys the sense of relief and release, and not just that the discussion was over, was tangible. Being told so bluntly that my cancer was terminal was not something either Boy wanted to hear, it took a while before they accepted it was necessary for them to know. Cats get out of bags eventually, we explained, and it was only a matter of time before they would find out and we wanted them to hear it from us and not by accident. 

Responses were, understandably, different given their ages and personalities. Older Boy, the day after we told them, said quietly he had suspected for a long time the cancer was life shortening and how sad it made him. He hadn’t wanted to ask as he didn’t feel he knew how to. He talked about it more again later that night - not much and trying to control his emotions as he did. The tightness of his hug said more than the words. Younger Boy had cried in disbelief as we’d told them, saying nothing. We’d popped his bubble; he knew it was serious but had hoped a cure was possible. Pushing the stark, blunt, reality into his world felt cruel, but he started to come to terms with it over the days that followed. Five minutes after we’d told him, tears still streaming, Younger Boy asked to go on the PS4.  Older Boy chose to bury himself in a book. We let one distract himself through building and then blowing up huge models in Minecraft and the other by falling deep into a fantasy novel. That first night, climbing silently into our bed, the Younger one curled up and hugged me as I read. 

Waiting until we had cleared away the late lunch of roast rabbit and root vegetables helped. Having rabbit allowed us to remember the first time we had eaten it together in France, and conversations with hungry kids are seldom a success. Being half term we had the space for all of us to be around each other, even if talking was going to be about anything other than what we had told them. Years earlier, emailing my brother, sister, mother, and father the day after the diagnosis was the only way I could tell them. My mother’s deafness made calling impossible, even with her husband passing on messages, but that wasn’t the reason. I hadn’t thought through, or processed, the situation or what it meant.  I couldn’t cope with conversations about it or being asked how I felt. I didn’t know. The numbness in me took days to dissolve away, and only when it had did thinking or feeling became possible. The Boys were the same. We had numbed them and had to wait for it to wear off. JJ the dog got a lot of hugs the night we told the boys. Her voiceless affection, endless licking tongue, and love of being allowed onto the boys’ beds at night helped. She joined in the cuddles, knowing there was a need but not why.  

The numbness dissolved as hoped for and, a couple of days after we had told them and another large dinner, the questions we had been expecting and dreading came out. How long before the cancer was going to kill me and why did you not tell us before?  They accepted the answer to the second question The Wife and I had agreed on; that they were too young and so we had waited until they were both old enough. Our answer to the second was more problematic.  We don’t know so how can we tell them? Using vague phrases, suggesting months or even a year or two, we danced around giving any real answer. They knew we were struggling and, being kind, didn’t push for a better answer. 

The fear The Wife and I had felt during the build up to telling them I was going to die from the cancer had been tough. We took turns preventing the other from backing out. It was the right decision, however hard. The changes in our house are slight but noticeable. The pains which make me cry out are taken more seriously by The Boys and they understand better why they need to help with household chores they had previously seen as parental dictatorship and child slave labour.  The Wife and I no longer have to be as careful about what we say and who we say it to. As the days go by it will become easier. Life will carry on, school, sports, friends, and video games will distract them further. One milestone is passed as I head back into a treatment regime which, if it works out, pushes other even nastier ones further away. It is a relief to know the elephant has vanished, the cat is de-bagged, and the rabbit well and truly eaten.