Parul Goes to India

June 7 - June 20

          Dicta-poem

          You can write about

          a despondent woman wanting

          to give up on life. But

          leave out the names.

          Tell them about her

          problems, her woes... 

          Tell them how she 

          wasted a whole day just 

          crying her eyes out 

          apparently for no reason 

          at all. And then the next 

          morning she started 

          panicking because she 

          had to study for her finals 

          You’re not really 

          writing this, are you? 

          ...now I’m afraid to speak.

June 7

School’s out, tests are done. I’ve got a week before summer school, time to read one or two Hemingways and start kicking around few story ideas of my own. Meanwhile, Parul leaves for India on Saturday, for six weeks. I’m sure I’ll miss her, but right now I feel like it hasn’t hit me —like I’m gonna miss her bad about the third or fourth week in. Things have been going good for us. Not perfect, but that in itself says something. We know each other pretty well, and still we love each other —can’t explain it, but it’s true. And we’re talking more frankly about “the inevitable” lately —it depends on my meeting her folks and her being baptized, but Parul called these “technicalities.” I laughed, and agreed. God will be with us, one way or the other. I do hope we will face our future thoughtfully —but for now I hope she enjoys India!

June 8

It started to hit today, and she’s not even gone. This is love: dependence, longing. I am going to miss Parul. I know she’ll be back and I know this trip is what she wanted for a long time, but I’m still wishing —very selfishly —that she could be staying here with me or that I could go there with her. Someday. Thank you God for Parul, for love. And she’s bringing a bible with her —inspire her, God, to read it and read it.

The family went to Grandma’s this weekend. I think of Don now God, and I pray that this trip will be refreshing for him and not tiring. I think of Josh, too, and I thank you Lord for the “refreshment” you’ve already given him. Keep it up, Lord, for Josh’s sake, and —thinking selfishly again —for the sake of us who want him to keep on being him, as a Josh-style support and witness to your presence. God, I pray the same for Don. I don’t appreciate the “Don style” sometimes, but your presence and support works though him just as much. The evidence, again, is in the people around him. Help me, Lord, be one of those people.

June 9

Parul is on her way to India now. We had a perfect goodbye, which makes me feel good now, but there were several goodbyes before the final one, and I’m afraid that in the time before the last time I may have said things wrong. Love should make that never matter, shouldn’t it? Or is it “always matter”?

Anyway, this morning Parul dropped by at 9:00, said “I have until 11:00 —and I want to go shopping.” I am not a good shopper, especially on a tight schedule, and more especially when I really wanted those two hours alone with her. So I rushed her and grew impatient with her, and as a result we did get at least half an hour of privacy. This was our first goodbye. We made love, and it was good. We said goodbye, sweetly, and I thought the six weeks had begun.

But what I had rushed her on, buying a jacket without letting her try it on, back-fired. Three hours later, she called from the airport to say it was too small and I would need to arrange with her cousin to have it exchanged. It was an awkward call, and in my clumsiness I had forgotten to say I was sorry (another never/always paradox of love?). And I hung up. I had said I loved her again, but I felt depressed. Her 5:30 flight time came and went with no last-minute goodbye. 

Then at 8:30, a late call from O’Hare: her original flight was cancelled, and she was just about to get on the next flight over. So here was the goodbye call. And it was very gushy. All things got said this time, and “I love you” was said a couple more times, by both sides, for good measure.

Parul is on her way to India now, and true love makes the world much smaller and these six weeks more bearable. Thank you God, for second chances.

June 11

It’s been a very productive, purposefully busy day. I washed my car inside and out. I walked, brushed and moussed the dog and cleaned up his area. I washed dishes and cleaned the house a little. I looked at my bible study lesson. I did a load of laundry. I read 100 pages of A Farewell to Arms. I played piano for five minutes. I watched two movies. I ate too much. I may get a lot done in the next six weeks, but I may also gain weight. One way or another, it’s gonna be a dragged out stretch of time. School starts next week, though —that should help. 

But then again... God, I am an anxious person. I have been fretting lately, trying to write something, some semblance of a short story. I’m not a natural, though, God, and I need your help. But I think I know what you’re saying now, that I shouldn’t put all my hopes in one bucket, that I shouldn’t be a slave to this pen. Okay, God. But if you want something else for me, the way I’ve been you’re going to have to shout it in my ear and take me by the hand.

God, I want to write. And yes, God, I want to write for your glory. I want it to be mainstream, but I’d like to show that it can be both: theological and popular, of reason and of faith. And now you’re saying that I’m too specific, too narrow, too demanding. Yes, God, I know —and that’s why I’m so anxious and frustrated, isn’t it? Lord God help me to put it all in your hands. Help me to know that you know what’s best, not me. Help me to hear myself talking —no that’s not it, is it? Help me to hear you talking to me.

And God bless Parul in India. Let me trust you with her, too, so that I don’t faithlessly worry or selfishly yearn. Let me know that you know what’s best for her too, and that you direct what’s best for us all. And in that direction, remind us to acknowledge you. Motivate Parul to open the bible she’s brought with her, and let me open the one I have here... Thank you God. Amen.

June 12

Another busy-productive day: I finished A Farewell to Arms. I took an hour and a half hike, through the forest preserve. I ate conscientiously today, not completely disciplined but with an improved restraint. And I played around with a short story I’ve been working on. This one might pan out —become complete, that is, if not publicly palatable. It is another story about death —but it isn’t like that. The promise of the story is explicitly about life and “wanting to live,” but it revolves around a discussion about gravestone epitaphs. 

On the top of my mind, but not yet written it into the story, is this: “I am the resurrection... the way, the truth and the life.” My characters want life —I now have to show them that life, as the verse runs in my mind, without sounding preachy or sermonesque.

This may be a response to the attitudes of Hemingway in A Farewell to Arms. I can’t pin his death perception down in one sentence, but there is not any thought of the life of the resurrection. You live, you die in his book. And in my book, too, you live, you die, but I want to show something else. I want to show the necessary. I aspire higher than Hemingway, that means.

But thank you for today, God. Bless Joshua, Daniel, Annie, Don, Mom. Bless all my relatives and friends and acquaintances. God bless the people I don’t know and even the people I know and hate. And maybe by praying this I can reach beyond whatever clique circle of friends I might have, Lord. 

Maybe by writing this story I can be a better Christian. 

I can be a servant through my pen, Lord, if it is your will. And why wouldn’t it be?

But why do I feel like I’m begging? Free association will be my downfall.

“Can be” is still not “is.” ...But thank you God. Amen.

June 14

Ideas, germs abound; sometimes it seems like I could write all day long. I’m sure I’ve picked the proper direction at such sometimes; I’m positive then that I am a writer. But these germs and ideas are all very much in their infant stages. I’m learning that I’ve got a lot to learn. Things don’t just flow from head to lead. The sparks fizzle more than they catch, and even when they seem to catch there are countless steps to the blazing success I dream of, countless steps past the few combusted embers I’ve managed to produce. I do like the sparks, though, while they sparkle and catch and smoke; even at these minor stages of combustion, I like what can be done with words, and I have to stop and appreciate what God allows me.

I’ve finished a rough draft of the story I had alluded to. It’s not great, and really it’s not very good, but I have a certain pride, a certain good feeling that I will never apologize for, because the spark has caught and filled five pages, 1,200 words. If it’s kind of an ambiguous fire, or a somewhat lifeless fire (and my story is all of these, I will be told), I will still have my good feeling and I will still thank God, because there is a flame where once was only a spark, and there was a spark where once was nothing at all.

That “certain pride,” by the way, is not pride about what I have personally done. Maybe I don’t even have to say this, but I used the word... maybe the better word is fascination, about what I can do. Yes. God, thank you.

I will still work to improve the current story, because there is ambiguity and lifelessness and pointlessness and a lack of depth. Maybe I’ll work at it and never get it right, but that’s all right, because I’ve got other ideas after this one.... 

Sometimes it seems like I could write all day long —but thank you God, sometimes and always.

June 15

And then some days I don’t feel like writing at all.

June 16

Yesterday. Last night specifically. With an attitude not born of despondency, just low energy.

I’ve been keeping myself very busy. For the last five days I’ve walked six miles a day at an hour and a half clip. I’ve lost five pounds this week. I’ve read fifty pages of Hemingway daily, almost through The Sun Also Rises. I’m also going to work and keeping my room and my car clean. Yesterday I took care of a few phone calls Parul wanted me to make, to housing, to finance, to Zaba.

I’m still waiting for Parul’s letter so I can have an address to write back to her. It takes time, though, even as I have a feeling time is flying for Parul. I will understand if she gets caught up in the excitement of her first big adventure. Meanwhile, I’m working today, Saturday, and I have to go, right now!

June 17

Continually busy. It’s becoming a need. I finished reading The Sun Also Rises. I’m keeping to my walking schedule and today, having time off from work and school, I watched three movies and wrote a short story. And I went to church in the morning. At least one of the movies and part of the book made me miss Parul. I still haven’t heard from her.

School starts tomorrow, and work continues. I will keep busy and get busier. And yet —I’m a walking paradox —I’ve got the anticipatory Monday blahs. I’d rather not go to work or to school, I don’t want to, but I guess I have to. Right now, I guess I’m just tired. I had been feeling good, no need to be depressed, but I hope tiredness doesn’t bring about another swing.

There is something else, though. This week Josh will be in the hospital —his last chemo! —and Friday Don will get his chemo. Next week is sure to be a downer. God take it out of me, let me think and pray for Josh and Don and Parul.

June 20

School has started. This summer looks like it is going to be a relatively light load. We have two stories to write and I’ve already submitted the first, something I’d written three months ago. For the second story, I’m kicking at a dozen embers, but so far nothing has combusted.

Josh’s low white blood count has pushed his last chemo treatment out one week. Don still goes in Friday for a one night dosage.

I haven’t hear from Parul yet. It’s been ten days. I’m worried —not for her, I think she’s all right, I’m just not sure about myself. The sun also rises, though, and we will be together in four and a half weeks.

 ⇋

Biding Time

Scene 1: The clock, twelve feet up a brown brick wall, says it is five minutes after one, almost exactly. The second hand is only two ticks away from the twelve. One tick. Now it is exactly five minutes after one.

Sojan had said one o’clock. I was to meet her in front of the L section in the library. She would recognize me, she said, but I would have to be sure to be there. You will recognize me? I asked. She said yes, she remembered me from two years ago when I had dated her cousin once. I couldn’t remember her cousin. No matter.

“You’ll be carrying the jacket,” I said. “I’ll recognize you.”

“Yes,” she said. “One o’clock.”

I hung up the phone and rummaged around for some scratch paper and then a pen. Her name was Sojan; we would meet on Monday at one sharp.

Now it is Monday and it is twelve minutes after one. I don’t even know this person. She is the cousin of someone I once dated, someone named —I don’t remember. Her name is Sojan and I had been at her house last week. I don’t remember that either. It was Friday night and I had been pretty wrecked.

“What did we do there?” I asked my friends.

“We had a good time. You slept.”

“How long?”

“Three hours maybe. You passed out almost as soon as we got there. We had to carry you to the car.”

Three hours and I didn’t even open my eyes. I don’t remember anything.

Now it is seventeen minutes after the hour. I need a smoke. The second hand moves very slowly and I start to wonder. “What time is it?” I ask someone nearby. He looks at his wrist. “A quarter after,” he whispers. According to his watch, then, the clock is right. More or less. 

The jacket is bright red. There’s no way I’ll miss her. She said the wallet was still in the pocket.

“I dated your cousin?”

“Yes, you went to a movie.”

“And you were there?”

“No. You passed me on the street, and my cousin introduced you to me.”

“And you remember that?”

“Sure.”

She said the name of the girl, her cousin, my date two years back, and I did not recognize it, and now I’ve forgotten it again. Maybe she thinks I’m someone else.

“No, I will recognize you from the other night, too,” she said.

“Right. Last Friday. I’ll see you at one.”

It is now one twenty five. I need the jacket. I need the wallet. They aren’t mine, but I must have them, to return them to the person I got them from. It’s a long story.

Her name is Sojan. I had to ask her to repeat it, and I still wasn’t sure, so I asked her to spell it. S-O-J-A-N. She already knew my name. Sojan. She is Oriental, and her cousin is someone I had once dated, someone whose name slips my mind. I vaguely remember the date now. I have not dated very many Oriental girls.

1:33. Twenty seven minutes to one. Or twenty nine, by that man’s watch. We did not specify AM or PM, but of course the library isn’t open in the middle of the night. I’m pretty sure we said Monday. I should have written it down. I wonder if we had actually agreed on the L section.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Have you seen someone... I’m looking for... She’s Asian. She’s carrying a red jacket... Her name is Sojan.”

It’s a long story, that jacket. It wasn’t mine, but I had one just like it. I mixed it up with someone else’s somewhere, and someone else went home with mine. By the time we figured it all out I didn’t have the jacket anymore because I had left it at someone’s house. Sojan’s house. The other guy stopped by with mine and I didn’t have his. He threw my jacket back at me —it wasn’t worth much, he said —but he wouldn’t give me my wallet back because he thought I was lying. I don’t remember what he said his jacket was worth, but it was quite a bit more than mine. And it had his wallet in it.

It’s 1:39. Almost forty minutes. She must have forgotten. We did say this Monday, and I’m sure I would have seen her. Sojan. Oriental. I haven’t dated many Oriental girls. None since —I can’t remember the name. It must have been a short romance. She must have jilted me. Sojan, where are you? Sojan. So, John. So, John, you may never get your wallet back.

I remember the guy’s jacket, it was just like mine. Very red. Maybe it was worth more than mine, but anyway it had this guy’s wallet in it, and I have to get it back to him.

He didn’t believe me, but he said he would wait until after I talked to my friends. As a matter of courtesy.

Forty four minutes after one. Sixteen minutes before two. I have been here almost forty five minutes. The second hand sweeps along so slowly when you watch it. There, now it is 1:45. So slowly, and yet when you look away and come right back, five or six minutes have gone by.

Maybe she’s waiting for me somewhere else. Sitting in the periodical section or pacing the lobby, tapping her fingers and watching some other clock tick slowly past the meeting time. She would have given up by now.

Sojan, Sojan, Sojan. I don’t know what she looks like.

She sounded very patient on the phone. I will give her until two, because I am sure we said the L section. L for lobby? But I won’t move until two. I want to go check the lobby, maybe take a quick tour of the rest of the library, but surely we’ll miss each other that way. She’ll get to the L section and I won’t be here, I’ll be in the periodicals maybe and she’ll give up and go home. So I’ll wait here, at least until two.

1:55. She’s stood me up. Sojan —I don’t remember her last name. I don’t know her phone number either, so I’ll have to wait until she calls me again. Or maybe my friends can take me back to her house. She didn’t want me to meet her there for some reason, but she hasn’t shown up here. It’s 1:56. I’m tired of watching the clock. I’m going home.

“John!”

“Sojan?”

“Yes. I have your jacket. Where were you?”

“I... I was right here.”

“But I’ve been waiting for you in the lobby, like we said, 1:00pm.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Yes —I mean —I guess I remembered it wrong.”

“Well, anyway, here’s the jacket.”

“How long were you here?”

“An hour. I’m surprised you didn’t pass me on the way in.”

“Yes. Well, thank you Sojan. Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem. See you again maybe,”

“Yeah. Maybe sometime.”

It is a minute after two.

Every Thought Is a Prayer

June 1 - June 5, 1990

June 1

     God, when the job at hand is more than I can handle,

     God, when the pressure weighs heavy upon me,

     God, when things are out of my hands,

          when I am helpless, lost and looking for answers,

     God, when I’ve buried my head in the sand,

          sulked in my sorrows and wondered aloud

          in a roomful of sufferers, selfishly cried “Why me?”

     God, when I don’t know the answers,

     God, when I think I need to know

          as a matter of survival, life and death,

     God, the power and the glory

          and the answer, God, is yours.

June 2

     Parul is not happy with her mother today.  They don’t want her going to India —because of money, because of safety, some other time maybe —and she’s disappointed.  She threw some shoes at her mother and walked out of the house, eleven miles to 520 Stewart.  

     She got rained on several times along the way.  

     She’s never been anywhere, she says, and now, forget it, she doesn’t want to go to India.  “One day we’ll go together,” I said, and she said, “No, I don’t want to go.”  

    I brought her to her uncle’s house.  She’s not sure what will happen next.  She’s even having second thoughts about medical school.  

     “This too...” I said, but she wasn’t ready to believe me.  

     Tomorrow, God, I pray for Parul.

⇋

     “I talk to God a lot.  In the shower, in the car.  Some people might call it prayer, but I like to think of it as a kind of thought process, a figuring out.”

     “Does he hear you?”

     “God?  Sure.  God hears us whether we’re talking to him or not.”

     “Hey, Joe, come on, what makes you think God would take the time to listen to you?

     “I don’t know, Jim.  I don’t know why.  I just know he does.”

     “How do you know?”

     “He answers.”

June 3

     Faith: such that I long for, a faith of such power to give me the strength to recognize my weakness, to repulse all illusions of my own credits, to relinquish my whole self —faith to say no more me, just God.  Faith, trust, that I could walk within every shadow of darkness, that I could believe that light awaits me, that darkness will be defeated.  

     God, you lay it all out for us.  You give us a one word direction and it ought to be easy.  But I... the self gets in the way, and yet you have given us the self, too, God; you leave us all sorts of mysteries and then you give us this mind, that wants so much to know.

    Thank you God, for the promises you have given Josh today and for the strength you have given to Don; for the smile you have given to Parul today and for the grace you have given her family.  Thank you God for everyone close to me —Annie, Mom, Dan —and thank you too for everyday people, most of whose names I do not know, but thank you God for their patience —your patience —and acceptance of a man with measly faith.  I am afraid to be weak, God, and I am afraid of relinquishing myself, even to my maker, but thank you God for your ears and your hand and your presence.   Thank you for your strength and your smile and your grace, your light and your direction. 

     P.S., just one thing more:  God bless my studies and my tests this week.  I need you.

June 4

     The thought occurred to me that things will never be the same.  

     This wasn’t a pessimistic thought, either.  Josh has realistic hope of a lasting remission.  Don went to work today; he’s feeling much stronger and it makes me consider that with the extent of last week’s pain for him followed by this week’s recovery, the chemo might really be doing what we want it to do.  

    So I thought: what if Don’s tumor disappeared and Josh’s remission were complete?  Things wouldn’t be the same; they would be better for the ways we would —and will! —be stronger: in spirits, in confidence, in faith.  There is, of course, a “best case” scenario, to believe that Josh and Don will live forever.  And why not?  By faith, God promises that they will!  

      For now, however, I must continue to pray.

June 5

      How about this:

     Every thought is a prayer to God, and every prayer has an answer within it.  God is with us all the time, and when we remember this and believe this, his spirit responds in us and directs us.   God directs us as long as we acknowledge his presence (Proverbs 3:6), but when we forget this, where are our thoughts, our prayers?  Even then, God is still with us, waiting for us to call on him again.

     Every thought is a prayer, how about that?  But every day —isn’t it a shame? —we spend so much time being thoughtless.  And still God is with us, waiting for us to come to our senses, to think, to pray.

     God is more than an abstract thought, however.  The proof is not, and cannot be, my own, but it is this: our thoughts do not sustain themselves.  One private thought cannot sustain another, yet there is an answer, always, like the voice that came to Moses and said “I am.”  God is an answer.  Yahweh is the answer to our prayers.  God is not a thought; God is “I am,” the answer.

     But what about the so-called great thinkers of the world, those who say they do not pray because “there is no God”?  God is still the answer, waiting for the question to be asked, the prayer to be prayed, the thought to occur (There are thoughts that have not yet occurred, even to the greatest thinkers).  Every thought is a prayer, I said. 

     So what about the thought that God does not exist (and who has never cried, “Where are you, God?”)?  Isn’t this simply thinking without direction, aimlessly pondering, oblivious meditation?  Thoughtlessness, really.  And still God waits with an answer.  Is there a God?  Yes, Yahweh say, I am.

 ⇋

          God, with apologies*

                    God

                    adj.

          I AM:    considered apart

                    from concrete

                    existence

                    or

          (AM I)   a specification

                    thereof.

          I AM:    theoretical;

                    not applied

                    or

          (AM I)   capable of being

                    put into effect.

          I AM:    thought of

                    or

          (AM I)   stated without 

                    reference

                    to a specific

                    instance.

          I AM:    Fine Arts. with

                    nonobjective

                    design, form

                    or

          (AM I)   content.

          * with apologies to Concise American Heritage Dictionary, 1980.

Maelstrom

May 25 - May 31, 1990

May 25

Chinese proverb (written in the margin): As a gong cannot be polished without friction, so is a man not shaped without trials.

There is so much to say and only a lifetime to say it. More on my pessimism —I’m confused now. I don’t know whether I’m looking at things too negatively or looking at the facts the way they are.

Don’s cancer is apparently worse than we realized. It’s stage three of three, where the tumor has metastasized to other parts of the body; in Don’s case there is a tumor in the lymph glands of his neck, and he has a two-year old unhealed wound in his groin area. He’s having his first dose of chemotherapy tonight and will have another next month.

Mom is candid about this: she is frankly speaking of the possibilities: Anne without a father, for instance. Anne doesn’t seem to know.

I broke the news to Josh this evening —he was calling here from Champaign —and I basically told him everything I’ve said on this page so far. And when I was done, I felt guilty. Maybe I told it wrong. Maybe my pessimism clouded the hope he might have had if someone else had told him. I’m afraid people will start seeing me as a gloomy monster. I want to give up my role as the realist, immune from denial. I want to be the one to say “Praise the Lord” in the shadow of darkness. But I can’t, because of my awareness and because of my guilt.

Mom just chastised me for spending the night in a hotel with Parul. Guilt: was I callous, in “light” of it all? Am I unworthy to be “there” for anyone now? Have I proven myself, yet once more, to be more harmful than helpful? (“Annie wasn’t aware,” I rationalized, “was she?”)

Maybe I’m just too filthy, too carnal, to be a part of this family, so fixed, rightly, on finding their Christian support.

Maybe I’m being an advocate of the devil.

Maybe I ought to sink quietly out of the “light,” out of sight.

Maybe I’ll just succumb to my rampant self-pity. And why shouldn’t I pity myself? Myself can’t say “Praise God,” myself has walked away, myself has lost hope. Myself has been given a million chances to say “Praise God,” and sometimes it gets said, but I can’t seem to help myself from being insincere.

God forgive me. Even here I have no faith. In the end there may be nothing more to say.

Get out of yourself! Don’s dying, Mom’s crying, Joshua’s stunned, Anne is confused and you sit here thinking of yourself? Get out! Look at you: you just thought of getting on your knees and praying —something you haven’t done properly in eight months —but what for? Not to pray for anyone but yourself! Yeah, you need prayer all right (“Yes, I do.”); yeah, you’re hopeless (“Yes, I’m afraid I am.”). So fuck the artiness, the pride, you goddamn writer! Fuck the fact that Letterman starts in ten minutes. Your priorities completely suck! But to hell with them. If you’re gonna put yourself ahead of everything and everyone else, then stop pretending. Do it. Go ahead, pray for yourself, see if I care, you fucking loser. Get down on your goddamn knees and pray!

May 26

I’m not going to try to reply to yesterday’s tantrum. Rereading it, I sound sillier than I actually felt. I’m not going to comment on the prayer that followed, either. I did it, God was listening —if I say anymore I’m sure I’ll slip into insincerity. I’m not good enough of a writer to capture the intensity, as it happens, of a maelstrom, so how can I now grab the waves afterwards, one day out of perspective?

God help me. I don’t even want to pray tonight. I don’t want to go to church tomorrow. God help me beat the devil down...

Josh and Dan called tonight. A much better call, but still distant, tense.

Mom has apparently forgiven, forgotten, but still —am I projecting? —tense, distant. Annie, God bless her, is herself. May it always be so.

Don, though groggy and doped and a little despondent, is not “moody,” as Parul phrased in a question. He’s sucking in, bearing it, surviving.

Parul is good to have beside me...

I’m going to be okay, I think. I’m not now, but in the future —maybe this is faith, after all. Maybe with some of that I will go to church, and I will pray.

One other thing. I had been letting my fish die, putting off cleaning its tank, not even feeding it for two days, but today I changed the water. I did not do a pH match, but somehow, even in the half effort, there is an analogy here for hope. Originally I had the rationale of giving up and starting over, after everything had died anyway, but now I’ve decided to work on life. (I’m insincere now, but later...).

May 27

In the mean time...

It is good to have Josh and Dan home. I feared weariness tonight, but I never laughed so hard in my life at one point, and overall we were jovial. God we needed that. We need each other.

God bless Parul, Annie, Dan, Josh, Mom, Don. God bless Don and Josh especially, and keep them. Make your face shine, God, give your peace to us all. Thank you God that I am able for the first time in two weeks to put other people first in my prayers. But Lord I pray to be lifted from the meantime, lifted by the Holy Spirit, brought to a better place, lifted by Jesus, by grace.

⇋

     In the Mean Time

     It doesn’t matter what anybody says,
          I will hate them for it,
          doesn’t matter what anybody does,
          I am on the edge, in the mean time
               waiting... waiting...
     “for the Holy Spirit to descend,” the pastor said,
          but I will consider this wrong too:
          I am consistent here on the edge
               in the mean time where I never meant to be.
     “Everything is futile,” said Q., but I’ll fight
          even this statement, just to be guilty
          for not being able to do anything
               in the mean time. What does it matter?
          I’m waiting... waiting...
      “for Jesus’ forgiveness!” but what if I’m not sorry?
          in the mean time between your Eden and your hell,
          my birth, my death —and what’s to be absolved?
          I am on the edge of a razor fence,
               waiting... waiting...
          to see what you will say. For God’s sake, speak!
               before I hate you, no matter
               in the mean time, no matter at all.

⇋

 

May 28

The customer never feeds back unless there’s something wrong. When all is well, no one talks about it. So it is with my writing (my feedback) and likewise with prayer. God is a Maytag repairman: I take him for granted and don’t always have much to say to him, but he’s always on the job, waiting, in case there’s something wrong.

God I’m here because it’s not going perfect, not as I try to make it anyway. God I’m here because I can’t fix things myself: something always doesn’t fit when I try to put it together. I suppose I should stop pretending to know what’s going on when I have no blueprints.

But tonight God, I’m not here with a list of complaints. It has been a good day; not a perfect day, God, but maybe that’s good in itself. I almost didn’t write tonight, almost wouldn’t pray tonight —almost too happy to talk about it. But I’m here tonight, God, and I wanted to show my appreciation, my awareness that you’re always on the job.

I’m not ready to thank you for cancer. But I’m here to thank you for strengthening Don enough to get out of bed and walk to the Koehn’s. I’m here to give thanks that Joshua, who goes into the hospital tomorrow, is full of life today.

Dan just found out the extent of Don’s cancer today; I told him, as I had told Josh. I think I was of help to him, but it’s funny how things go. Thank you God for Dan, who has so often being a help to me.

Annie. God she’s thirteen and potentially a cause for all sorts of teenage trouble. Thank you God that she’s not there now and that she knows of your goodness.

Mom. God I’m here tonight without any gripes about my mother. Thank you God, and may I not take her for granted.

Parul. Thank you God for bringing such a good person into my life. Bless her and bring her into your family.

Thank you God for salvation, for Jesus, for your love. Thank you God for the Holy Spirit and for its effect on my narrative, my prayer.

Thank you God for teaching me to appreciate.

May 29

Maybe if I looked back at what I’ve written over the last several weeks (and months and years, if I had written as often) it wouldn’t be as bad as it seems. Without looking back it feels like a roller coaster, and I’m afraid that one day the exhilaration will be permanently overcome by the sickness in my stomach. Maybe if you read what I’ve written you’ll understand —but maybe not. “Kind of a wimpy roller coaster,” you’ll say, or “your tracks are not so unique. We’ve been there, too.” And maybe so, but maybe your ride is not as rickety as mine. Or maybe we’ll all derail.

GOD IT’S A BUNCH OF CRAP.

Let me copy down what I wrote on scratch paper at work this evening. I’ll swear up and down I wasn’t serious. In fact, it would be traumatic if anyone had ever seen this composition, and this piece alone may make me want to lock this journal up from now on.

I wrote —or maybe it was someone else:

“This won’t be fair to some people —my brothers, my mother especially. But life’s been unfair, God’s been unfair. He’s led me through trials I couldn’t handle, and if my brothers, my mother or anybody else can’t handle my suicide, then it’s just more proof that we have an unfair God. I hope that everyone can handle this and go on with life. If God has any justice at all, you deserve things to turn around (and Parul talks about worth —ha!). But if anyone can’t handle this, I don’t blame you.

“I suppose God will punish me for this blasphemy, on top of the suicide’s punishment. That will figure. If there is a God he can throw me into the deepest hell and I will feel no remorse.”

Reasons for this? The usual, I guess. Work sucks, school’s a pressure, and of course there is all that is happening to the people around me. Sunday I told Parul (not a cause of my woes) that I was considering going to one of those Cancer Family Group Sessions. I should go, but I probably won’t. I don’t think I can get off this roller coaster right now.

May 30

Readers: I’ve been writing so much for me only that any other approach —any address to you directly, for instance —seems odd now. But I’ve got to get out of myself for a while, for always if I can help it, and I need to talk to you today. This journal hasn’t been working well as a whine, and maybe that suicide note on the last page really meant something else, like an end to that whole chapter of self-centeredness. No, it did not (“poof”) disappear last night at the end of the entry, but during the course of this day after, here and there parts of my old self have been slipping away, and not by my writing or my doing but by other people —even, perhaps, by you.

Ron Ward led a bible study today. But first he listened to how things were going, and he talked in his minimal way. Then the study began, starting with a hymn he chose, Amazing Grace, because it went with our topic, the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep parables. And though at the beginning I was determined not to pray aloud, by the end I was eager and sincere: “Thank you,” I prayed, “for the fatherly hug and the shepherdly care, for accepting us and bringing back to the flock.”

Elizabeth (the Indian shepherdess) asked me to park her car.

Joshua Lamken is in the hospital again: chemo #3. His spirits are light, and though his veins are a bit worn out from all the tracking stuff, he takes it with a sense of humor. I though visiting him would be anti-climactic, considering Don’s shape, but it wasn’t. It was good.

Don is doing better. Still low energied, still a little eerie, but underneath the physical weariness the spiritual flame is burning. Midday I saw him curled up in bed, under the covers in a dark room. At day’s end, Mom reported that he had had a red-letter good day, praying for hours, talking to God, sensing response. Dan said he’d had supper with the family and had met with church deacons; and I saw him smile when I said good night —we even talked about today’s Bulls game.

Dan went back today, but we had lunch together and a beer in the evening before he caught his bus. I let him know that I was here if he ever needed some talk, and that I appreciated him being there.

Parul and I only briefly passed today. I was rushing between lunch and work and she was leaving the house, having stopped by to see me. Nothing more than that, but it served as a reminder that she cared, too. If only I could do a better job of reciprocating.

Annie caught a cold this week and missed two days of school, but it was a blessing in disguise, as she got to spend time with Dan and was here to be around her dad. I hope her cold gets better now, and I even told her so, without sarcasm, without older brotherness. Annie, I might be growing up.

Life is still a roller coaster and I still can’t get off, but it’s nice to be reminded that I’m never riding the tracks all alone. Thank you God.

May 31

One word doesn’t have to match —I think I’ve well enough shown you this —with the one before it. One day at a time, therefore, where yesterday could just as well be years ago. Everything is behind me now, everything is ahead, and if my last step lacked a consistency with the one before it, as long as I have the persistency to keep on stepping I’ll be okay; and if you fly above me and map my steps and determine that I’ve been going in circles or squares, stay there above me so that I don’t have to know what you see. I’ll keep on stepping and feeling good that I’m not yet lying down.

Thank you, all the same, God, for a glimpse of the whole picture, an Ecclesiastical illumination: it is vanity to think my steps or my words add up to beans, and yet it is wise to realize that Gods steps in, that it is God’s Word in the end, and I am saved. Thank you God.

Don Has Cancer

May 7 - May 23, 2010

May 7

Hairless Josh is in the hospital for his second chemo treatment. I’m about to go see him. God I wish there weren’t tensions between us.

It’s a selfish prayer, though. I ought to petition for Josh’s spirits, whether or not I’m in the room. Better yet, I ought to pray with praise for the improvements in Josh’s health. God is present, Josh. That’s what I’ll say. Thank you God.

Parul is the best part of my life in these last few years. I say that, God, without bumping you to the side, realizing and remembering that all parts of my life are by your grace. But teach me, Lord, not to take this special part, nor any part, for granted. Thank you God.

May 8

Met Lorenzo, Josh’s hospital roommate, yesterday. He is seventeen years old, been in the hospital for three and a half months. Got hit by a semi while riding a bike. Good kid.

Josh found out he’s got a hernia —not related to anything. He said they told him that it wasn’t urgent and didn’t need to be taken care of right now, but eventually he would need “emergency surgery.” Probably next winter, Josh said, is when he wants it. Kind of goofy, I think. Josh must have mixed up his terms. Anyway, he wants to have as much of a free summer as he can.

May 9

The key word for the week seems to be “try.” Not that I’m living it, but I’ve been aware of it after studying Luke 13. “Try” is a principal I can apply everywhere: when I’m depressed, when tired, when afraid, when lonely. Try. With Josh, with Parul, with Don, Annie, Mom, Dan, with all family and friends.  With strangers. And most of all with God the father and Jesus the son. Try. Then, allowing the Holy Spirit to enter in, I realize I don’t even have to supply all the energy, if any of it. Only the effort. Thank you God.

May 10

I may not keep this up. I’m tired and even my words are tired. You’ve heard yourself before, Jon, this ought to be putting yourself to sleep.

I have been studying hard, reading Dante’s Inferno, one third through now. I’m on schedule, but it’s going to get tougher. I’ve got to finish Inferno this weekend and then start putting together a paper comparing Dante’s “good life” with Plato’s. I’ve also got to work on a psychoanalytical criticism of Doris Lessing’s “Each Other,” which requires, most of all, research. What gets pushed aside, it seems, is my journalism feature article on the Can Surmount program.

Why have I picked this as my subject? Why can’t I escape it or avoid it? No, it’s a good topic, I think —I guess I’m just anxious that it might be emotionally hard to do. Here I’ve been, working on overcoming my pessimism with Josh’s condition, and maybe I really should stop dwelling on an “odds are” disease.

Wednesday, Josh found out that a certain flag-protein has been dropping in his blood, from a 230 count to a 30. Good news, everyone says. But I’ve kept embarrassingly and offensively skeptical. A defense mechanism, I guess. I do not want Josh to die, but somehow that seems like the only way all of this will make sense. Maybe I’m just in my anger stage, angry with God for playing with us like gameboard pieces, seeing how far we can be pushed. God help me. Deliver me from evil, Father, and do something about this awful threat to my sincerity. I’ve been helping Josh be honest about his insincerity —he’s admitted it, too, and I’ve said (echoing Rod Broding) that it’s okay, you’ll accept it and consider insincerity as much a prayer as the sincerest praise. So I’ve preached. Now I’m tested to believe it.

Part of the reason I’m tired is because I had wanted to get started in my feature story. I didn’t, so I had to blame something. Fact is, I had other things keeping me busy: the Greek quiz, the meeting story and most importantly visiting  Josh —maybe not as valuable to him as it is necessary to me. But I’m not really tired now. I’m just over-trying to stay awake. That’s not much of a conclusion —but I’ll continue another day.

May 12

I should have mentioned this earlier, but I’ve still got the feeling that it isn’t anything to get excited over. Or maybe it’s just different affections that make me a pessimist for Josh and an optimist for Don.

Fifteen days ago, my stepfather had a routine X-ray taken of his chest. There is a spot on one of his lungs. He had a second X-ray taken, and the doctors intend to compare the two before making any conclusions, but due to bureaucracy, ineptitude or the postal system, things got delayed. Meanwhile Don, and even moreso Mom, have become very excited and impatient —and worried. Finally, yesterday, a doctor scheduled Don for a CT-scan this coming Monday evening. The doctor told my mother that it “could possibly” be cancer and one of several “omas.”

It seems like a Woody Allen skit, though. Mom reported the doctor’s words as “very likely,” then toned them down when pressed. Don had just been recovering from a bout with bronchitis that had not lasted overly long. And maybe, I thought and suggested, the reason they hadn’t rushed with this is because they didn’t need to. Maybe the CT-scan was merely to calm us —like the one Woody got when he was sure he was going to die of a brain tumor (Hannah and Her Sisters). Maybe. But then I thought Josh’s problems last February were psychosomatic. At any rate, we won’t know more until the scans get back, which will take a few days more. I will pray for Mom’s worries. And I don’t want Don to die just as much as I don’t want that for Josh, so I will pray for Don, too —but I guess I don’t have enough fear in me to pray for the spot or to pray for the doctors or to pray for God’s mercy on us all. God, may it not be. May my optimism be warranted and may Don and Mom be restored, on that front, to peace, so that, full of health, they may once more direct their prayers to Joshua’s recovery. Thank you God. 

May 14

Josh is doing okay, but today might be tough. His first days out of the hospital weren’t easy for him last time. Pray, pray, pray. And Don’s test is tonight. “It’s too early to joke about,” I heard him say this morning.

It will be a very busy week in school. I had a productive Sunday —thank you God —but be with me now for the rest of this week, even this day, and help —cause —the productivity to continue. Thank you God.

...Sixteen hours later —it has been a busy day. I’m doing pretty good so far, but I’d like time for the body now, to rest the mind —I will yield to the carnal will to close my eyes. I won’t even dream if I can help it. I’ll sink into the pillows and I’ll reach my deep sleep in the most mindless of ways, with the television on and with (God forgive my indulgence, but thank you for the reprieve).

May 15

Don has what is “definitely a tumor, probably cancer.” A bronchiotomy will tell more tomorrow. God be good to Don. But I am afraid now of how I will act around Don. It can’t be the same as how I have clung, practically, to Josh, but I am afraid of the chance of being in a hospital room, visiting Don with no one else around. I had tried to do that every day Josh was a patient, and I even looked forward to the one-on-ones on the days he didn’t have crowds of visitors. But Josh is my brother. Don is my stepfather, and I am afraid that I don’t have enough love, not even the type that God would have us have for Everyman. Forgive me, Lord. I respect Don, I want him to be healthy, I don’t want any pain upon him. I want you, God, to be good to him, to keep him on the path to your heavenlyhold. I want as much for Don as I do for Josh, as I do for myself. But still —I am anxious because I do not “love” Don, because I once even hated him. God let me not be so stuck on the words stepfather, hate, cancer, life, love — 

May 16

Depression —suicidal —silly, isn’t it? So I’m laughable. So I’m not wise. “Certainly you’re sensitive,” they offer, as if that enlightenment would soften the edges of the things that make me foolish; as if knowing would make it so, that the mistake I made was not that big a deal, or that the mistake you made was excusable —knowing, somehow, that knowledge could make facts go away, “that I could fall asleep, la la, and face another day!” I’d rather shut my eyes and never wake. And I would, with a beatless heart and a bottled breath, with a beaten brain, defeated in 27 rounds (and I would follow my father (51), precede Don (59), and leave my brother (20) behind)...

And I would, spiting heavenly feasts and hellish forests, blaming God for leading me to shadows of never, never... blaming God for delivering the land of void. I would, yes, but I am sensitive, certainly, and afraid of the gun, the blade, the car, afraid of dying, afraid I might be wrong.

God help me if this would be my legacy: to write years and years of awful verbiage, to try to die a few times and to fail at it, a la Plath. God help me that I’m here, feeling sorry, sad... God, I need you.

I am ever the fake. And Josh would talk about “sincerity,” but look at me! God help me, I’m knocking though.

May 17

I was going to continue to talk of depression, because only half an hour ago it was still there. I am still low, but I read a letter from Uncle Greg and talked a little with Mom —nothing about these feelings, just good talk. On the way home I had thought —even teared up some —that what I needed was a hug. I guess I got one, of a sort. I guess God heard the knock.

But I am still low. Before the letter, before the conversation, another therapy occurred to me that might still help: to write it all down, to get to the bottom in order to rise to the top. So I will do that now, even though I will not be hitting rock bottom anymore.

A list of why I am depressed:

1. I hate my job (the endless race of rats: the working world can be a manic depression in itself). A few back pats from my boss now and then and I’ll probably be okay, but just having it that way is enough to underline my disgust.

2. I don’t hate school now, but it’s tough, and these last couple of weeks have demanded my full attention and energy.

3. I love Parul, but what they say about love, well, they’re right. I need her. We were thinking about seeing each other tonight, maybe sleeping together, but she couldn’t, and I can’t really afford the time anyway (I would have if she had been available —reason never prevails when you’re in love and when you’re horny). (It’s showing through that I’m not so depressed anymore, and yet I had to say this half an hour ago.)

4. My family doesn’t have any time for me —I don’t expect them to and really I ought to give them more time. But I don’t have the time, they don’t have it: it’s all whole eggshells and unlit fuses. So I don’t say anything. So I keep a distance, trying to avoid cracking or combusting because I need them when they don’t have much to give, and vice versa.

5. Finally, I’m depressed because it’s all so selfish and silly. Why must I be so success-driven at work and school? Why do I need so much attention at home and with Parul? How can I be any different? What would be the otherwise? Then, too, I want the success and the attention, I even pray for it and thank God for it. Now I don’t know if it was even right for me to do so.

Anyway, it’s time to sleep. Thank you God for Uncle Greg, for Mom. Bless Parul. Bless my boss and thank you for my teachers. Be good to Don and Josh, and God help me to understand your will for them. I thought I could accept without having to understand, I thought that blind faith was in me. But it’s not, and I can’t. God help me, I’m still knocking.

May 20

I’m trying to imagine living a life with Parul. She is good, and I could live with her, but would she be able to live with me? I need to change my ways. Improve tact, patience, courtesy tolerance, listening ability, romance. Lessen self, sarcasm, bigotry, arrogance. God I need work. I am thankful for Parul’s own patience, tolerance, etc. But it would be especially selfish of me to keep testing her or to take her for granted. Bless Parul —Lord I pray not that I would be blessed by her but that she would be blessed by you.

May 21

Roland Barthes: Writers are those creatures who never take holidays —they are too struck with “logorrhea.” A writer is a writer, like Louis XIV was king: even on the commode. But I want to be a writer, dammit. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it more, because it’s true: I WANT. I want, therefore I’m not.

May 22

Don has cancer: adenocarcinoma, radiation starts tomorrow and surgery will be done in July. No chemotherapy. He’ll be able to work. Everyone is happy and taking this as good news, and it is, relatively. We all were pessimistic, but after all there is a tomorrow and there’s even a July. Mom sounds like there is even more hope —more than Don sounds like it, but he too has less pessimism now. I wish I could join the ranks. Josh, meanwhile, is in Minnesota for the rest of this week, visiting Grandma. He is getting optimisticable, and he might outlive us all.

God bless this family. Bless Don, bless Josh, bless Mom, bless Annie, bless Dan. Thank you for your presence, on which we so depend. And thank you, ultimately past all illness and shortcoming, for salvation, redemption and grace.

May 23

Don has cancer, praise God! That’s what it sounded like when Mom told me the news last night, and I tried to be happy for their positive attitude. But it was too much. I lost control this morning —I kicked some furniture and did a little shouting, the culmination being that when Mom said “Where does the Bible say ‘lay down and die’?” I replied “Fuck the Bible!” Praise God for my response. Mom came over and hugged me and we both cried for several minutes until we both were able to smile.

I don’t mean to be the eternal pessimist or negative in any way. I don’t mean to be blasphemous by calling everything “God’s will.” But I want to be a realist. Is it contradiction, to be a Christian realist? I don’t think so. I believe in the ideal —I believe in it as truth, that the best is to come for us, that heaven ahead of us is real. 

And I don’t want to be afraid of Josh’s cancer or Don’s cancer, as I don’t want to be afraid of death in any form. I am, though. But God I guess I just want to be real about admitting that. I don’t want to pretend. I want to stand up and shout, “God, I’m afraid,” so that you know, so that you might come and comfort me. 

And I don’t want to be selfish about this. I want you to come to everyone who is afraid in this family. I want to see their honest fear, too. I want to see it so that I know you see it. But then —maybe I am being selfish. Maybe, just as I’ve been working a lot of this out with you privately, maybe I shouldn’t expect any different of them. And after all, this is what I learned from Mom this morning, that she had genuineness to her. She wasn’t just wearing a smile, God, it went deep because it came from your presence within her. Maybe I am being selfish, God, because I needed that testimony. 

Thank you God for your will, and for everything, every real thing that passes all understanding. Peace, yes, thank you, God. But thank you, I’m learning to say, for cancer, too. I can’t understand it at all, God, but that this is your will and that the future still looks brighter than bright, I thank you.

 ⇋

Surmounting Cancer

The 11" x 8" poster hangs inconspicuously between two elevators in the lobby of Lutheran General Hospital. “Can-Surmount,” it announces, as boldly as the space permits. Below this, in smaller letters: “Insight and understanding from people who have ‘been there’.”

Can-Surmount is a national program, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, but in this Park Ridge hospital they “don’t get too many calls,” according to Cindy Wilson, a Lutheran General volunteer with the program. There are plenty of patients, but apparently not enough participation in the support program. “We’re frustrated, but we’re working on solutions,” Wilson said. “For one thing, we’re going to get bigger posters.”

More than any other disease except those of the heart, cancer is a disease of great size and numbers. The National Cancer Institute says that in 1990 more than a million people in this country will have “been there.” Every patient’s diagnosis is paired with a statistical prognosis, where the case is compared to thousands that have come before it. “Each case is individual,” the doctor may say, but meanwhile the individual cases pile up into their categories.

The Center for Disease Control says that in a recent year 470,000 Americans died of cancer. More than 20 percent of all American fatalities were cancer-caused, and nearly 50 times more deaths occurred than those due to AIDS. “Cancer can be a frightening and fatal disease,” said Pam Mikos, a nurse who works with cancer at Lutheran General Hospital.

“It’s a sad disease that nobody wants, but it’s out there,” agreed Syril Gilbert, chief social worker in the hospital’s cancer ward.

Then, as if in unison, the two added separately what seems to be the catch phrase at Lutheran General: “Cancer does not mean an automatic death sentence.”

There are, in fact, many people who have been there and come back. One only needs to look at the statistics again to see that more than half of the cancer cases are being surmounted. The prognosis is much better for some kinds of cancer and most cancers are completely curable if detected in their early stages. 

“Many more people are surviving cancer,” said Mikos, citing the growing success of radiation and chemotherapy. “Ideally, one should start adjusting to life after cancer before one actually undergoes treatment,” she said.

The social work performed by Gilbert and her peers and the medical assurance such as Mikos offers go hand in hand in making Americans aware of “life after cancer.” Nevertheless, when a patient first learns that he or she has become one of the numbers, it may take more than the professional care of the Gilberts and the Mikoses to build an enduring hope. The sympathy of family and friends might provide the extra strength, but so might the empathy of a peer from among the numbers of survivors, who can most uniquely relate.

Dr. Paul Hamilton, a medical oncologist in Denver, Colorado, and Lynne Ringer, one of Hamilton’s former patients, realized this factor in 1973, when they developed a one-to-one peer visitation program and called it Can-Surmount. By 1976, the program was accepted by the Colorado American Cancer Society. The program was first sponsored nationally in 1979, and it was welcomed into the Illinois chapter of the American Cancer Society in 1986.

Can-Surmount provides a doctor-approved support system between peers who have and have had similar types and sites of cancer. Volunteers, who may come to the program one year after surviving their cancer, are trained by the American Cancer Society and matched with patients according to age, sex, cancer type, and all factors that might contribute to mutual understanding.

There are other programs within the American Cancer Society system that provide peer support to patients with specific cancers. Reach to Recovery, the most prominent of these, attends to breast cancer patients, and other programs deal with cancers of the larynx, colon, and brain. But for the many other types and sites of cancer, since sheer numbers cannot allow each to have its own, the American Cancer Society offers and upholds Can-Surmount.

Theoretically, the Can-Surmount program would be an unchallengeable success. In Illinois, of the 50,000 cases of cancer estimated for this year, not including common skin cancer, 25,000 will be survived, according to National Cancer Institute forecasts. Of those, 16,000 are peer-supportable exclusively by Can-Surmount. Illinois has the program in 14 of the biggest hospitals across the state, spread proportionally between the Chicago area and southern Illinois, between rich and poor communities, and between rural and urban areas.

In practice, however, the program has not been as successful as its local backers had hoped for. At Lutheran General last year, 24 patients were visited by Can-Surmount visitors, and most were only one-time visits. The suburban hospital, which handles nearly 1000 cancer patients yearly, has ten volunteers working for the program. These volunteers don’t keep very busy, though, when the program gets only two referrals per month.

Some of the difficulties with Can-Surmount are that despite the number of cancer cases and the attractiveness of the program, getting people interested is not 

easy, getting doctor’s referrals is difficult, and matching up the peers is even tougher.

“You can’t force it on people,” Gilbert said. “Some people don’t want to be visited. Then, with more outpatient care, patients aren’t in the hospital as much, so some are never made aware of Can-Surmount.”

Uni Okuma, regional director of the American Cancer Society in Palatine, believes that the main problem is that there are too few patients being referred to the program.

“Doctors and nurses are a necessary avenue, since the lay volunteers are not professional or part of the hospital staff. But we’re not getting the referrals,” said Okuma.

But even with referred patients, it isn’t easy. Cancer is varied in its types and prognoses, and setting up visitors and patients who are perfectly suited for each other is not always possible.

Gilbert told the story of a Lutheran General case that Can-Surmount could not help. “There was a melanoma patient who died here two weeks ago,” she explained. “He wanted to talk to talk to another (recovered) melanoma patient, but there just weren’t any around. We offered him counselors who were former larynx patients, former brain tumor patients, former colon patients, but he wanted someone who had melanoma.”

The Illinois chapter of the American Cancer Society is currently re-evaluating Can-Surmount. “But we are always reviewing all of our programs, to make them the best they can be,” said Doreen Carson, an American Cancer Society service director at the state office. “This program is still relatively new for us,” said Carson. “We have to be patient with it. Even the most successful programs, such as Reach to Recovery, take a while to get off the starting block.”

“And it may be good that we’re not getting a lot of calls,” Carson reasoned, “because maybe there isn’t the need. But on the other hand, if there is a need, we want to be there.” 

Gilbert, who is not tied to the American Cancer Society except through Can-Surmount, agreed. “If we do 25 units a year, maybe that’s all the people want. If there are 100 cancer patients and one wants the program, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it is meaningful for that one or those 25 people that want Can-Surmount. They need the chance to relate to peers, and they wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

The analyses Gilbert and Carson offer may sum up the dilemma of Can-Surmount, trying to build personal bridges between those who have “been there” and those there now, and finding that where successful personal bridges are concerned, numbers never matter.