The Magnifying Glass

"I'm coming Home..."

Somewhere in the 1980's

If a heart can be divided, then mine is portioned into thirds. There’s a third in America, a third in Malawi, and Australia holds the final piece where the tap root propagates into the pacific.

I’m often not sure where I am from, or where I belong. I’ve used all kinds of ‘legal’ access on my 31 hour trip – my USA passport to exit Malawi, my Malawi TEP to allow me to leave, and my Australian passport to enter at Perth. Yet, racing to Sydney I really believe “I am coming home”. Even the flight attendant somehow senses it and his mouth widens to a smile, his words grip me, “Welcome Home”.  I step off the Airbus onto Sydney’s landing and I’m right back where I started from.

I haven’t seen my mother in over a year. Somehow, with my parent’s approaching retirement in December, and the talk of an extended trip to Malawi, it seemed ok to ‘miss’ Australia in the whirlwind of our 2017 annual leave from Malawi. We would be together in Malawi in just a few months, my parents would marvel at the flush loo in the guest room, and comment on the new paintings hanging on the wall, they would have the ‘Jett’ tour of all the ‘new things’, and we would have porridge and tree-ripened avocados for breakfast. We would assure my father that the insulin wouldn’t spoil during the many hours of Malawi’s electricity shortages by switching on the genset and listening to it purr….

My dad bought an iphone this year. For facetime, to Africa. He surprised me with a call in June, and I cried when I saw them sitting in their kitchen in Australia, because I knew they bought the iphone for facetime, and facetime only.

Mum took a liking to the iphone and our livestream chats became more frequent. One day, she called and said, “I’m not feeling too great, Shar.”

That ‘feeling’ was the reason I was now at the end of my 31 hour journey to Sydney. The ‘preliminary report’ that Dad had forwarded gave us reason to believe Mum is seriously ill.  

My first view of Mum in over a year, is of her backside. Three ties hold her pale blue hospital gown closed and her white compression stockings match her white leather mules. She is walking down the hospital corridor on ward 6 at Sydney Adventist Hospital. I’m not sure whether to hide – because my emergency trip is supposed to be a ‘surprise’, or call out to her right away. She’s sharing a joke with the nursing staff, and when I bellow “Marian deBerg” she flings around with a bright face, the kind of expression which tells me she knew I was coming, but is now trying to act startled.

With my parents in the Sydney Adventist Hospital

My sister, Deanne coming to the hospital each day and working full time! 

I can’t help it. I’ve been a wretched muddle of chaotic tears since Tuesday’s ‘preliminary reports’ and now I just sob into the chest of my mother. I came here to comfort her, but she is now bolstering me.

I always thought my mother was ‘unsinkable’. Nothing could get her down, no task was too great, no burden too heavy. She could ‘carry’ it all, just like she carried my sister and I through childhood.  She was the rising and setting sun, always predictable, always there. She is the person who never gave up on us, the woman who taught us about moderation, beauty and compassion. She is our principal appraiser. Who else would print off each of my blogs and bind them into some sort of ‘Shar diary’, except her? Who else would tell me that even when I failed, that failure did not define me? Who else would be my cheerleader, but her?

I can’t stand the thought of losing her, and if the tears are not already pouring down my cheeks, they are dammed up behind my eyes, where Victoria Falls could stream at any moment.  

Ward 6 – the Oncology ward.

 I sleep overnight with Mum in Room 604.  Partly to ease Mum, partly to ambush her doctor who rounds at 6am. Mum has been admitted for two weeks now, and she still hasn’t been ‘diagnosed.’ It’s time we start making a plan. I brace myself as the Doctor conveys the news.

“It’s not good, Marian.” Her doctor sits on the edge of her bed. I know what’s coming, I know it’s cancer. Mum has chosen to believe it’s not, even though she’s admitted to Ward 6, and her primary doctor is a medical oncologist. “It IS cancer….” The doctor continues, but I can tell Mum has just absorbed a punch to the gut, and the corner suite where I teased her about the kind of strings she had to pull to obtain it, was now spinning.

I’m not able to process everything as I imagined I would. I’m definitely not the strong one, which I came all the way from Malawi to be – I’m suspended in the first four stages of grief, I’m glued in a web where I’m stranded alone, awaiting the bite of the spider who spun it. Only I’m not alone, not anymore. Now that Mum has been told, and Dad has been called, and Deanne has been informed, we are now able to be in this together. I stopped googling things like ‘hemorrhagic ascites’ and ‘PPC’ days ago. It’s best not to google. Don’t google.

Dad arrives shortly after breakfast, they both know the news now and they hold each other and cry those big, fat, sad tears of loss. Loss of the retirement plans that were just months away. Loss of their ability to plan, period. Loss of Mum’s otherwise, stalwart health.

I leave the room, and my parents who are tenderly weeping, holding each other with blubbers between the silence.

Mum and Dad

We sat with Mum while she had an ascitic tap

Down the corridor in the ‘quiet room’ I make a cup of tea. I decide I’m definitely not going to wear mascara tomorrow, my tears have completely streaked it off my lashes and its residue is now dusting my cheeks. It’s no secret that I’m broken today, and the lady sitting opposite me in the quiet room can see it, so she comes over and embraces me. She’s petite, an Asian lady with salt and pepper hair, kind eyes, and a canary yellow dress paired with a matching silk scarf tied neatly about her neck. Her husband has fought pancreatic cancer for 18 long months and now his battle is ending. Her husband is dying, and she is reaching out to me. Her heart warms mine. We spend the following week together, her family and ours, passing each other in the corridor, at the fish tank or the outside atrium, sipping tea in the quiet room. They are saying goodbye to their loved one, and we are grieving Mum’s new diagnosis.

Becky flew in from NZ to be with us. Deanne and her friend Bubba also pictured here. 

It’s Mum’s last day in the hospital and I reach ward 6 via the stair case, which leaves me slightly puffed. I see the daughter of the dad who is on palliative care and losing his fight to pancreatic cancer at the ward entrance. “I flew down this morning. Mum called and said, this is it”, she tells me as tears swell in her eyes. We hug. I don’t know what to say. She can tell.

“You know, the thing about cancer, is that it puts a magnifying glass on our relationships…. Seeing how my parents love each other, the care and dedication they have for each other, well – it’s a precious gift” her voice is gentle and feeling the urgency of her dad’s last moments, she presses on towards his room, where the rest of her family gathers to say goodbye.

I’m still at the entrance to ward 6. The ward where people are given a ‘sentence’ , ‘bad news’, ‘palliative care’.

But it’s also the ward where people receive a ‘magnifying glass’.

Mum said after her diagnosis, “this is a real bummer, it’s not what I would have planned.” But then she also said, “life is full of suffering, why NOT me?”

Mum’s magnifying glass shows her that she has a husband who really loves her, I mean, REALLY loves her. She has two daughters whose strength is fixed on her presence. She has two son-in-laws that hold her not as a MIL but as a MUM. She has 3 grandsons who adore her, a niece who would fly in to give support, and she has a network of compassionate and dedicated friends who have showered her with visitations, phone calls, flowers, and meals.

And I see another relationship magnified during this trial.

My mother loves the Lord. Her faith is unwavering. Her resolve in the Great Physician’s love and care is anchored in His word and His proven faithfulness in her 73 years of life, so far.

She is not alone. And this is not the end of her story.

Mum and I