THE HOLE AT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE

It’s been another strange week. My friend Ann had been with us since last Monday, but left Saturday morning for work, leaving a twenty dollar bill on the table that I shall now have to try and sneak back into her pocketbook. She’s back home in Lawrenceville today and for the foreseeable future. I spent my week being anal about rearranging things in my dishwasher, trying to be quiet while making love, and listening to her sweet but constant stream of chatter. I also spent some of that time feeling guilty about my selfish secret thoughts, but that is mostly background noise for me anyway. The doctor says her cancer is not treatable at this time. That evidently does not mean her death is imminent, just that she’s got a wound somewhere but he can’t figure out where to put the band-aid. He told her to come back next month to see if her pancreas is still swollen. He also told her not to stress out because they would figure out exactly where this darn cancer is sooner or later. I understand her need to vent, the need to bring her life up in review to me, highlighting all of her successes and failures, plus the illnesses and health habits of herself and her family. It’s natural to have your life flash before your eyes when you think you’re going to die soon. I listened to her patiently as I quietly rearrange the plates and turn all the spoons and forks over so their little scoopy parts face up instead of down.


We took her out to our favorite watering hole Friday night, the one whose name I am forbidden to mention. I thought it might cheer her up as she names being a rock guitarist among her many hobbies. The band was the delightful one that was playing the first night we went there. I hated to leave her at the table to dance, but we do not sit when “Georgia” pours across the patio like liquid starlight. I asked her if she wanted a spin on the floor and would have even volunteered my husband, but she said she didn’t feel up to it. We made it an early evening, deferring to her health and to our plans for Saturday, a long bike ride through the countryside to visit a friend, our former neighbor. He and my friend Ann would be the perfect match if she were looking and he weren’t married. His wife has MS, and he retired from his job to be her full time caretaker. He was an outdoorsman back in the day, and as a young married couple they spent every weekend hiking, camping, and canoeing. Now she can’t even go to the toilet without his help. I did not know her before the illness, but their relationship now seems to be about the disease. Their life circles about the whirlpool of her needs, drawing them both ever downward as her helplessness progresses. They seem so unalike at this juncture I cannot imagine them young and happy. He is talkative, cheerful and politically astute; she taciturn, wearisome, and uninterested in anything beyond her chair. He does not complain or lose patience with her, but I can see the look of despair in his eyes at times. He gave up his motorcycle because he became fearful that he would have an accident and then there would be no one to look after her.

My job has the occupational hazard of making me intensely aware of health issues and acutely attuned to the difference between what we do to ourselves and what can’t be avoided. Sometimes people draw the short straw in life through no fault of their own, and some dig their own graves with a fork or a bottle or a needle. I understand addictions and am not making judgments, but this week one of the best new people on our staff was buried. She died three week ago from complications caused by her type II diabetes. She was 44 years old, a single Mom with a son in university and a daughter in high school. She weighed upwards of 300 pounds and was about 5’1”. She was a kind, thoughtful person and everyone on the staff is grieving along with her family. When I heard about her death I could not help but think of that if my friend Ann, or my former neighbor’s wife knew they could live a full and healthy life by changing their diet or exercise habits, they would grab for that lifeline in a New York minute. In fact, if my deceased coworker were given a do over, I’m sure she would too.


I sort among the threads of my understanding for answers, and I can’t even decide what the questions should be. Ann has faith in God she says, and I was assured that the lady who died went directly to heaven and was now safely rejoicing at Jesus’s feet. My former neighbor does not look to the sky for salvation. I’m sure like me, he sometimes wishes he could believe in magic too, but I’ve seen the man behind the curtain pulling the levers and turning the gears. I’ve accepted that I must take responsibility for my own life, my own health, my own happiness. A lot of people at my job have started signing their email with inspirational and religious messages. While I find this both inappropriate and personally annoying, I’ve still been racking my brain trying to come up with a signature of my own. I like the verse in Matthew “For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust,” but I’m sure no one would get the irony. I really want something that says, come on peeps, you are not the center of the universe. The universe is indifferent to individuals and even species. In fact, the universe just doesn’t give a damn. Oh, and I would like to say that in a nice poetic way as to not offend anyone. Any suggestions?