When I read a novel, I’m annoyed when the author backs off or sugarcoats their characters feelings or thoughts. For me, it’s like chewing on a dog’s chocolate flavored plastic bone. So being honest, nakedly honest, is how I attempt to approach my fiction writing…but it’s not easy.
After my daughter read the first chapter of my novel, “Twisted Minds,” she informed me that she was “disturbed” by it. I, knowing it is a graphically sick scene, but not wanting to assume what she was exactly referring to, asked what she meant by that. Her reply was—I paraphrase—because all that sick stuff came from my mother’s head. When others have given me similar feedback, I have a way of backing off from this kind of unwanted insight by saying, “I take no responsibility for what my characters say or do.” But it really doesn’t fool anyone, at least, not for too long. Through fiction, I’m able to get in touch with the darker side of human nature and the shit that crouches in dark dank corners of my mind.
All this brings me to my intention to write—for a while at least—about things that I can’t pawn off on my fictional characters in the novel I’m presently writing. It’s the kind of stuff that reaches out and trips me, smacks me down, keeping me from my current novel.
And maybe, someone else who reads this and is bushwhacking through cancer’s morass will find this helpful. Hopefully, at least some of my thoughts and feelings will resonate.
Last week, I already started this process. I’ll be back.
Please leave comments, your experiences or grunts, if so inspired.
(To read about how I lost my novel, scroll down to: (“Losing My Novel in a Dark Dank Corner.”)
Different people, different circumstances, different bodies, different diagnosis, different treatment plan, but what is and remains the same is the fear, the sadness, the anxiety, did I mention fear, the loneliness, the fear…..the fear…..but I can only speak from the stand point of the one who loves the patient. As we sat listening to the doc, I could not breathe, I shook from head to toe but my wife, the patient, she calmly nodded her head and, if I remember correctly, even busted loose with a joke or two…I could not breathe. All that we had worked for and toward, would it ever be, all that we had planned for, was it all for nothing, our life together in the future, would it be there….I could not breathe. Then I sat up and said loud and clear in my head, ” I WILL FIX THIS, I WILL FIX HER!!!!” and I dropped into overdrive. I took off like a speeding bullet, I researched, I asked 42 billion questions, I became an oncologist, seriously, I could practice if allowed to clep!! I made the appointments, I talked/answered questions for my wife, I made spreadsheets, I made check lists, I made drugs lists, I made calendars, I checked ID’s at the door…..then came chemo….chemo….I was not prepared, I thought I was, but I was not prepared. I sat in a ridiculous cube, it used to be a lived in room, but now it was a pulse pounding cube that made no sense, and I sat there and listened for her to make a sound that would say she needed something or had a word or two to say to me…but she just slept…..and slept and I prayed and cried and wondered, and walked in circles in the cube, and I bent over puzzles for hours on end and I could not believe my reality. I was the absolute loneliest I had ever been in my life, so profound it frightened me, it shook me like nothing ever had before. Here is what folks tend to do when the word cancer is bantered about, they run like hell and as they disappear of the hill, they look back, wave and holler over their shoulder, “Call if you need anything, anything at all, you call!!” and, poof, they are gone…GONE. I was supposed to call….but what would I say? I had needs, great needs that I could not identify at the time, I needed a damn hug, I needed someone to hunch over the puzzle with me, I needed a sandwich that someone else made, I needed someone to sit and listen to my wife breath while I ran to the store for milk and a change of scenery, I needed someone to knock softly on my door, hand me a simple dinner, I needed someone to watch a movie with me, I needed someone to convince me it was ok to walk with them to the corner and back, I needed someone to get comfortable on my couch and listen to me, hand my a Kleenex and just flat out listen to me blubbler and snot and sob and laugh and joke, too, I needed someone to come and stay for more than 3 minutes. I couldn’t make a phone asking for any of that, I couldn’t because I didn’t know what I needed, but I do now and Jody, if I were anywhere close enough, I know what I would/could/should do for you, because this journey is not only about the patient, it is about the one who loves that patient. I feel you, I know the path you walk, I know what shoots through your head at odd random moments, thoughts that make your stomach lurch…I know the fear, I know those tears, I feel you, Jody, I know…..I hope that someone, close to you, someone who loves you will sit and do a puzzle with you. Mighty hugs, woman, I am thinking of you and want you to know, it’s all going to be ok, no matter what, it’s all going to be ok, I promise.