A friend of mine is sick. Very sick.
N is possibly the most genuinely kind person i have ever met and, as cliched as it sounds, I suspect she has never said or even thought a bad thing about anybody in her whole life (which to me is what distinguishes her from all the other lovely people I know, or am related to, with whom i enjoy a good acerbic vent occasionally). She's all those things but not insufferably smug or addicted to her own virtue like those perfect people that you come across; the ones that, try as you might, you can't identify a single good reason to justify why you just don't like them. She is incredible. She's witty, funny and unassuming. She's relatively quiet, but when she does speak, it is often an observation that is as likely to warm your heart as to send you into fits of giggles. I admire her and I envy her unforced goodness.
This good woman has a good man, and it is this good man who keeps a little energy in reserve through what must be a terribly, horribly, painfully difficult time to put a positive spin on what they living, all for the recipients of an occasional email bulletin. I hang on every word in these emails, and I feel the absence of information for the days between, but at the same time I feel so honoured to be on the list and so in awe of his ability to write - you would certainly excuse him opting not to. The bulletin two weeks ago, which was the first of it's kind in around three years, announced the end of remission and the beginning of the exile they impose on themselves when N is undergoing treatment (which she has been doing for about 9/10ths of the time that I have known her). He described a couple of treatment options that they were discussing and invited cards and letters over flowers and phone calls.
The next edition, a couple of days later, explained that N would be undergoing surgery and that they were both feeling buoyed by the support of their friends and family.
That email was a week ago, and this last week has been a long one waiting for news via an email that I don't even feel I deserve. Today it came. With all the optimism I have come to expect from this good, good man, he rejoiced that N was finally out of intensive care, casually dropped the 'c' word and added that she was 'ecstatic' to be back on the ward. One has to look long and intensely at his words to find the casual mention of this surgery being the hardest experience they have had in however many years of treatment as patient and carer.
But also hidden in there were four words that have completely hooked into my psyche... and finally I arrive at the entire point of this post. 'Still no speech yet'. Still. No. Speech. Yet.
My poor, darling friend can't speak, and to me that represents such a horror that I can't get it out of my head. I'd like to be able to replicate the good man's optimistic tone in my own bulletin, but can you imagine recovering from brain surgery, which is an experience worse than anything you've been through before, and not being able to communicate. Not being able to ask for 'brazil nuts' (to go with the example given in today's email), or for your hand to be held, or for somebody to please change the subject to something lovely and distracting. I think of being trapped in my own head, with my own thoughts, and I can only hope that the thoughts that N is trapped with are typical to her wonderfully kind personality, and and bear no resemblance to the hateful thoughts too often found in mine. Mostly unjustifiably.
I hope that tomorrow N wakes up with her full vocabulary returned and can make some delightfully quirky observation to her good man that makes him smile. I get the sense, for all his optimistic missives, that he could really use a smile from his lovely good lady.
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