Gut Punch

I’ve never understood the use of fluorescent lights in hospitals and other medical offices. I assume it’s a cost-effective way to light large spaces. The glare created keeps everyone a little off center. Maybe, in that way, they serve two purposes. Patients and their loved ones feel a little disarmed, unsure of reality, when receiving bad news.

They’ve wheeled my mostly still unconscious girlfriend back from her procedure. She rouses now when the doctor comes in. “I don’t have good news. It’s Cancer.”

Well fuck.

Julie listens intently to the doctor and next steps. She stifles a tear. Apologizes to me. I’m not sure if she’s apologizing for the tear or because she has cancer. Both feel absurd. I call her mom. She dozes back off. A few moments later she wakes up.

“I have cancer?”

Like Dory in Finding Nemo she keeps forgetting. And for the rest of the day I find myself saying, “Yeah babe. You have cancer.”

"Love Fiercely. This All Ends."

Those were the lines on the graphic she posted that literally knocked the wind out of me. 5 words completely undid me. To be fair, I was already unraveling before that post scrolled across my phone screen. My life at that moment could most aptly be described as treading water. I was just trying to stay alive. Trying to keep my children alive. My eldest was making this more difficult by playing with her mortality on the daily basis. On instinct, I commented, “Gut Punch!” and returned to my nightly scrolling.

Ding! Goes the inbox. "Why gut punch?". This conversation will be the start of what I refer to as divine intervention. My life being saved. Spiritually, emotionally and physically. We will quickly fall in love, for the second time. Our whirlwind romance looking like a midlife crisis to anyone observing far enough from the sidelines. I will leave my husband, (finally! some will say) and move my children 3 hours away from the town we've called home all their lives. Sometime later, I will sit in a tattoo shop with my beloved. We have both written "Love Fiercely" in our own handwriting for the other to wear. We choose a spot close to our hearts. It's our reminder. To always choose love. But, to do it with gusto.

We plant a garden, blend “anti-cancer” smoothies and make plans for the future.

This time tomorrow the surgeon will be removing the tumor.

This time next week she will be cancer free.

Maybe love really can conquer all.