The Best Days

Sarah Kilch Gaffney The Best Days

31 When the love of your life is diagnosed with cancer in his twenties, remember to live every day the best you can, because it’s all you’re going to be able to do. When they tell you it’s benign, but it will kill him because it’s in his brain, remember, dear God, it’s his brain. When the oncologist says terminal, believe him, don’t try to pretend everything is going to be okay. On the other hand, pretend every day that everything is going to be okay, because there is no other way to make it. Be grateful you married young. Get used to hearing, “I’m so sorry” from strangers over and over again. Unintentionally, make your post-op code for, “everything is going to be okay” his speaking your full name. Laugh that first time, in the darkness and blinking lights of recovery, without realizing you’ll need to use it again. Decide to try for a baby, even when you know everyone will think you’re crazy. Have a beautiful little girl between winter blizzards. Fall in love with her smile before everything falls apart again. Match milestone to milestone: crawling to radiation, running to brain surgery #2, talking to chemo, whole sentences to that fancy proton beam radiation down in Boston. Realize there will come a day, sooner than you can imagine, when her skills will surpass his. Talk about having another baby when things are going reasonably well, but wait until it’s too late and hate a chunk of yourself for the rest of your life because you didn’t fight harder. Know that part of it was kindness. Realize this must be a little bit what a broken heart is like. Make it through the brain swelling and loss of speech, the seizures and the caved-in face where the muscle has atrophied over the titanium plates. Keep telling him it’s okay even when he can’t talk and can’t remember your wedding day. Avoid sappy country songs. Pray, even though you don’t believe in God, that you won’t be widowed by the time you’re thirty. Pray that your daughter will be old enough to remember that there were good days. Pray that, when it happens, it happens quickly. Keep telling yourself that it’s going to be okay. Hold his hand. Trim his fingernails. Touch his scar every time you cut his hair. Sometimes cry, sometimes hard. Stack wood for peace. Try actual meditation and fail miserably. Cringe when it takes five tries to get an IV in because of all the scar tissue, and try to laugh when he writes you a note about filling the butter dish and it is complete gibberish. Keep thinking that maybe things will turn around. Keep thinking that you’re due for a break, like everyone keeps saying. Know it is never going to happen. Remember what a victory it is when he manages to say, “love you too.” Know that despite everything you keep telling yourself, someday that day won’t come. All those hard days will have been the best days, and you didn’t even know.