Queen Honey B.: Heartland

On the hottest day of the summer the tar that patches a badly cracked Midwestern road melts, bubbles and pops under the tires of the car I was driving to see a dear, old friend. It had been eight long, lonely and difficult months since the last time I’d been able to hear her laugh in my presence, since the last time I pulled her in for a second’s worth of an embrace that always silently said, “I love you my friend.” I longed for her to see my smile and not just have to trust that it was there on the receiving end of the telephone. That morning, I had cut across small mountains, winded my way up and down the veering black roads of mild mannered foothills, and drove with my eyes seemingly closed into the gauntlet of the big city Interstate, holding my breath and praying I’d make it to the highly anticipated reunion. When my dust coated car pulled groaning and hot, crackling against the stones into her gravel driveway, I was knocked once again from the pedestal of my own reality and flat on my back, staring at the enormity of the Heavens, reminded that long, lonely and difficult months haunt the lives of each of us.

It was not unexpected. I had met her before. Two years prior, I met her at a lunch where our common bond was the fact that both of us were kissing goodbye someone who was dear to us. My dear friend was moving far, far away and I met her mother for the first time around a crowded Applebee’s table, bustling with conversation and a looming sense that we were all already mourning my friend’s departure. It was not unexpected. I learned in December that my friend’s mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and in January would be undergoing a double mastectomy followed by chemotherapy treatments. For the first time since I had known her, I heard my friend cry through the muffled, raspy intonation of her cell phone. I knew she tried to hide it. She pushed it to the back burner or tried to stir down the boiling kettle of fear, sadness, and anguish. I also knew that my friend was now facing long, lonely and difficult months as she squinted and strained to watch her mother’s journey through cancer from miles and miles away. I had never loved either of them more, my truest friend, and her mother I barely knew.

The purple, glitter studded scarf that cradled and shielded the crown of her bare scalp from the searing summer sun was not unexpected. I peeled myself out of the car, sweaty and stuck to the seats. There on the bench, waiting assured, taking bets that I would fly past the house and have to turn around, were my friend and her mother, sitting in the shade being rocked by a warm breeze. When her mother stood to greet me, the subtle absence that loitered beneath the extra fabric of her t-shirt was not unexpected. No, for all of these things I’d been prepared. Through trips to the oncology floor at the Cleveland Clinic visiting relatives and friends, through cultural depictions and stereotypes about cancer patients, and through the massive exploitation of the pink ribbon for any Tom, Dick or Harry to make a buck, I’d been prepared. What knocked me to the ground that day was not seeing a mother who was bald and disfigured, not at all. It was her attitude, her presence, her sheer joy for the simple, good things life had dealt her. She sat on the bench, under a blanket of blue sky Ohio only lays out for special occasions, strong, radiant and defiantly facing long, lonely and difficult head on. When I arrived that day, there was no moment for sadness, there was no pause for pity, there was not a second or a word for misfortune. She greeted me as I imagine she’s greeted friends and family for her entire life, with a smile, a showering of compliments, and a meal.

I was treated that day to one of the most moving experiences I’ve known. Stepping from my car, I had expectations of being a pillar, a beam. I had expected to be supportive of my friend and her mother. As the afternoon panned out, I found myself feeling naive, and like a sweet child again, as my friend’s mother eagerly and graciously fed me, seated me at her table, and treated me like one of her own children. She showed me around the family’s expansive garden, which seemed to be growing before my eyes under the bright, blinding light of afternoon sun. She never missed a beat. I saw a potato plant for the very first time, was schooled in the taste and variety of New Zealand spinach, and was offered tastes of malleable snow peas, warm raspberries, and spicy fresh mint leaves. I felt in my own heart and soul the pride she and her family felt in their home, in their land, in their lives. That was it. It was pride, joy, triumph and courage that my friend’s mother refused to yield. After an afternoon full of the freshest fresh can get, of produce that passed only seconds between the plant, my fingers and my tongue, of baking Ohio heat, and of delighting in the fruits of labor and pride, my friend’s mother sat down only ever so slightly fatigued and told me that she’d just had her last chemo treatment one week before.

That night, I had the great opportunity to join my friend, her mother and her family at Relay for Life. They are a family that refuses to surrender the fun, the light-heartedness, and the quiet implications of day to day life that creates for them a sense of normalcy. We giggled through the National Anthem. We joked about how flattering or not the various shirts, shorts and shoes were that walked faithfully around the rubbery red track. We got ice cream, we laughed like children, and I knew as the sun faded, the breeze cooled and a humid night fell softly that this was how they did it. It was never disrespect. In fact, just by spending a few hours with them under a sky quickly filling with dots of tiny stars and the haze of moonlight, I learned how much they respected themselves. They were a family that knew who they were, where they came from, and that to change or to give in to fear, to panic, to the hard and rocky ground that paved the treacherous path which called itself “cancer,” would be betraying themselves…had they done that, they’d never have made it…she’d never have made it. It was the simplicity of the snow peas, the tiny sprouts of sturdy lima beans, the giant falling leaves of cabbages, and her motherly instinct to feed guests and strangers alike, to welcome them and make a home for them that seemed to help her make it through, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps secretly.

She told me she wasn’t going to feel sorry for herself. As I drove away from them that night, and I could see nothing but the short casted shadows of miles and miles of corn, made black by night and the light of the moon, with a cooler full of produce so generously picked and sacrificed for me, my long, lonely and difficult months seemed to fade into the background. With the windows down, the wind whipping my hair across my face, sticking it to my lips, I could do nothing but sigh softly to myself at the mysterious ways we are shaped, molded and changed. I’d learned something today, over a head of budding broccoli florets, while drinking ice cold, perspiring tea, and after snapping photos of the Fryman family at Relay for Life. Strength, courage, and all of those other traits and emotions we try to pull out of our humanity, those feelings that scare us to death until we need them, are as a matter of fact there all the time. It was easy to see them in my friend’s mother picking spinach and caring, lovingly as she always had, for her adult children. Perhaps then it was easier to see them in myself. Perhaps embracing an old friend, eating ham and Swiss with a bowl of freshly cut watermelon, and a day in the Heartland was all I needed.