Oh dear…more on mortality

A few weeks ago, I bit the proverbial bullet and sent a collection of personal essays off to an editor for some advice. I’m imagining a book. My main question—aside from the perennial “are these as worthless as they seem to me as I am hitting the ‘send’ button?”—was whether or not there was a theme or a thread that holds them together. I was having trouble seeing one.

I haven’t yet had a detailed conversation with her about the collection, but in a brief response after her first read-through, she had a suggestion. The theme that leapt out at her was mortality. 

Really?

Well, I’m almost seventy-four. Mortality is something of a theme in my life and the life of my friends these days, so why would it surprise me that it has slipped into my writing? (It’s certainly cropped up on these pages, as recently as a couple of months ago. https://echoriver.ca/pauladunning/index.php/2019/06/11/some-thoughts-on-mortality-and-magic/)

Those of you who’ve been following these posts for a while know that, two and a half years ago, my husband Jack was diagnosed with renal cancer. After successful surgery and a full recovery, a CAT scan revealed that the cancer had metastasized to his lungs. Since then, we’ve been watching it grow, very slowly. For the past year, he’s been undergoing immunotherapy treatments which have been a minor monthly inconvenience without any troublesome side effects. Apparently without any positive effects either. After a scan last week, his oncologist determined that the treatment is not working. Although they are still quite small, the cancer nodules continue to grow. It’s time to look for something else.  

So, we are back on the medical treadmill, waiting for a referral to a specialist in Toronto who is supervising clinical trials that show promise. We are assured that Jack is a prime candidate, since he is otherwise very healthy and the cancer has not progressed far. 

Jack couldn’t help asking the oncologist what were his prospects if nothing works.

 “We are nowhere near there yet,” was the response. 

And so, we push thoughts of mortality aside again. Or we try to. We’ll return to our little house on the lake this afternoon, go for a hike tomorrow, sip wine with friends while watching the sun set over the water, and pretend that we will live forever.

Because, really, what else can you do?

I remember, years ago when I had a brief spell as a business woman, watching elderly people from the counter of my little bakery franchise in a mall, and asking my forty-year-old self how you could be that old without the fact of your impending mortality hovering over every moment. Whatever made me think I knew what was going on in their heads?

I am now that old. Every moment? No. But often enough that it has apparently become an unconscious theme in much of what I write. I’ll try to keep that under control!