When someone asks me, "What kind of cancer did your mom have?" I'd like to say that I have a well-rehearsed and intelligent response – something like, "Uterine papillary serous carcinoma. A rare form of endometrial cancer, or in layman's terms, cancer of the lining of the uterus."
"Oh my, I haven't heard of that," they might respond. Perhaps they'd even shake their head sympathetically or touch their heart.
To which a prepared storyteller could respond, "That's likely because of its rarity. Uterine papillary serous carcinoma happens in about 10% of uterine cancer cases. It spreads faster and may be more likely to come back after treatment than other types of uterine cancer, even if doctors catch it early. Sadly, it causes about 40% of endometrial cancer deaths, and my mother was one of them."
But I don't have that response ready to go. So, I say something like, "Uh… serous carcinoma… it's a bunch of cells in fluid that don't form big tumors, so it's harder to get rid of. I don't know. It sucks."
And it does suck. If you haven't experienced cancer yourself, taken care of someone with cancer, or lost someone: it sucks. It's a constant worry. It's constant anxiety. It's a constant fight. It shows up. It goes away. It comes back. It changes everything about you and your whole family. Everyone has an answer, and no one has the answer. Believe all the "Cancer Sucks" t-shirts and bumper stickers, the #CancerSucks hashtags, and the people that tell you it sucks.
I remember meeting my parents and siblings at Lou Henri's Diner in Iowa City in 2011. At the time, I thought, "Why are we going here for breakfast and not The Hamburg Inn?" It was beyond me. We all loved the Hamburg Inn. I often craved the Farmer's Omelet and would gladly wait in line for 30 to 45 minutes to eat one. My parents had fond memories of meals there during graduate school in the 1960s. My brother and sister, who lived in Iowa City, loved it. And my sister, who visited Iowa City often, always insisted on having their hangover-beating breakfast before heading home after a debaucherous weekend. But there we were at a big table in the back of an otherwise empty Lou Henri's Diner. I ordered scrambled eggs, sausage links, and sourdough toast.
My dad was sitting at the head of the table, quiet as usual. My mom sat beside him and stood to hug us as we arrived. My older sister, a nurse, had gone with my parents to a doctor's appointment at the University of Iowa Hospital earlier that morning. She looked a little more downtrodden than normal. But we had some drinks the night before, so I didn't think anything of it.
"The doctor said it's serous carcinoma," my mom said. "It's a relatively new cancer, and they don't know much about it, so we're coming back in a few days to take it out." And then everything changed.
Breakfast arrived. I sat there in silence and picked at my eggs. Bland. I asked about a second opinion, but this was the second opinion. The waitress refilled my coffee. Cold. My mom went on about the excellent doctors at the university. "Ask your sister," she said, beaming with optimism. I turned to my sister, who carried the weight of medical knowledge. The look on her face told me what the diagnosis really meant. I bit into my sausage and immediately into a piece of gristle. I fucking hate Lou Henri's. Lou fucking serous carcinoma fucking Henri's. Fuck you!
Serous carcinoma. Words I'd never heard before and a thing that, to this day, I can't say or hear without thinking about my mom and what it did to her. It's hard for me to dive into the topic and know when to come up for air. I didn't talk about her being sick when she was sick. I didn't even talk about her being dead until long after she died, and she died right in front of me, so there's no denying it. And yet, denial was a huge part of my experience dealing with my mom's cancer diagnosis and ultimate death.
There are five stages of grief, according to noted psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Denial for me began at Lou Henri's. Christmastime in 2011. It continued until she died on August 7, 2013, and then it decided to extend its stay until late 2018. And if you think fish and houseguests stink after three days, well…
Soon after the funeral, denial was accompanied by anger and depression, which regularly vied for my attention. When I crawled into my hole of denial, I created an echo chamber for the two to bounce off each other in the dark, and they just kept doing that. I didn't bargain with anyone or anything. I was raised Catholic, so to make deals with God, to ask God for anything other than guidance was generally looked down upon. If I were going to go to hell because I asked for Legos for Christmas, even with the caveat that I'd be nice to my sister, then I would definitely damn myself for life if I asked God to cure my mom's cancer, even with the caveats of good behavior and a promise to start going to church again. And ya know what? I don't think she even asked for divine help!
I remember when her friends, Franciscan nuns whom she worked with and cherished, would come over to the house when she was sick. They would sing the prayer of St. Claire, and then we would all pray together. They would inevitably ask, "And Sallyann, do you have any prayers?" And she would always pray for someone else. The new family at church from the Philippines who were having trouble integrating with the community. Jose, a friend of a friend whose daughter had been diagnosed with lupus. Anybody and everybody but herself. That's the kind of person she was. She was always putting other people first. Always looking out for someone who needed more help – more prayers, more time, more money, more love.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the floor in the living room, digging my fingernails into my leg and screaming internally, "Pray for you! Save you! How about your kids? What about us?" Acceptance. Well, that's the tricky part.
My husband and I live mere minutes from Sullivan's Island outside Charleston, South Carolina, and we spend a lot of time there. I believe this place has a special power. When you're on the beach on Sullivan's Island, you can look out into the ocean, and everything else melts away. The world around you has a way of simply disappearing and nothing matters except just being there. It's the only place I've ever been where I've felt like this.
So, when my friend Janel lost her father suddenly, I knew she needed to be in Charleston and on Sullivan's Island – to experience the peace and the healing space that she so deserved. On one of our beach walks, Janel asked me, "How long did it take you to get over losing your mom?"
I don't think you ever get over losing someone so significant in your life. But when did I start to accept it? When did I start thinking and speaking of my mom in the past tense? At that moment - as Janel and I walked on the beach and talked about loss. When my dear friend, still in the thick of confusion, fear, and anguish, needed me to be there for her. To be her beacon of light, which is exactly what my mom would have done and would have wanted me to do. And so, I quickly did the math, and I told her, "Five years."
And then my husband added, "Jesus Christ, Kevin. That's so unhealthy!" Which was rude. But also true.
It is unhealthy to sit with grief for that long. It's a painful place and a lonely one. Five years is a significant and formative period of time. Being a closeted gay kid in eighth grade and all of high school, for example. Earning my super-senior degree in college (also known as a Master's Degree if you were a more focused and determined student than me). The time it takes to qualify for a major promotion at work. Having a baby and surviving the harrowing infant/toddler years.
The list goes on.
For me, in five years, I started and quit a job with little to no savings to fall back on. I went from weighing an incredibly unhealthy 150 lbs. to an even more unhealthy 190 lbs. I bought a house in Des Moines, Iowa, then sold it. I ignored red flag after red flag in a relationship. Instead of breaking it off, I made believable excuses, married the guy, and then promptly got a divorce. I ended friendships, and for the first time since high school, suicide seemed like an easy and efficient solution to all my problems.
I remember stepping on a scale when a nurse came to my house to do a health screening. I was upping my life insurance to one million dollars. I was convinced I wouldn't live and had nothing to live for. I didn't want my dad to be responsible for the remaining student loans he had cosigned for over a decade prior. I wanted to make my sisters beneficiaries so I could leave them some money for their kids' college funds, as I'd promised I would do. And I wanted my ex to be taken care of when I died. Even when my ex and I spent every night fighting or drunk or both, when at that point, we hadn't even been sharing a bedroom, I still cared more about his well-being than my own life.
I stood on the scale, and it read 190. Impossible. For a man with my frame, paired with my genetic hypertension, that number meant I was dangerously overweight — teetering on obese. So, I moved the scale into the kitchen for better lighting and confirmed the number again. How did this happen?
I may not be taking a razor blade to my wrists, but a slow, sad march into coronary arrest was just as lethal. Forty pounds of grief. Forty pounds of anger. It permeated everything in my life. And finally, here it was, bursting out of the top of my jeans. I hated myself. I hated who and what I had become: an angry, dangerously overweight little man who didn't stand up for himself, who didn't care about himself, who let shit happen to him and on him instead of making it happen himself. I was weak. Defeated. And about to be worth more dead than alive.
In the next room, the nurse shared that she was from Texas and had recently moved to Iowa after her husband's job transferred him to Des Moines. I told her I was born and raised in Iowa.
"In Clinton," I said. "A town on the Mississippi." "That anywhere near Sioux City?" she asked.
It wasn't. Sioux City was on the opposite side of the state, nearly 350 miles from Clinton. The nurse knew a woman named Beth from Sioux City. She couldn't remember Beth's married name but was sure I might know her if she could.
That's a funny thing about Iowa: it's very elusive to outsiders. Over three million people live in the state, but it never fails that when I tell someone I grew up in Iowa, everybody knows somebody from there. Everyone has an aunt or a cousin or the daughter of a friend who went to Iowa State University. Everyone used to drive across Iowa on their way to someplace else. Everyone has been to Cedar Rapids for some reason. And everyone assumes that all Iowans know each other.
I thought of my mom. If my mom were here now, she would be rattling off every Beth she ever knew just in case she could make the connection. That's also the kind of person my mom was. She wanted everyone to feel included and important. Honest connection was what got us through life.
My mom was given six weeks to live on my birthday. My dad called and told me. I was driving from Iowa City to Des Moines to prepare for a dinner party I was hosting that evening. I could barely hear him over the rumbling of my Jeep Wrangler speeding down Interstate 80. I hit the Newton exit and told him I'd turn around. He told me not to. How long is it from Newton to Des Moines? 40 minutes? It could have been hours that day. I sat through dinner and smiled. I drank a lot of wine. My friend Lauren eyed me throughout the evening. She checked in with hugs and asked questions out of earshot from the group. She helped with the dishes. After dinner, she sat with me as I sobbed. I called her the next day and apologized for being so emotional and unloading. She told me not to. She said she would always be there to listen. And she was.
Six weeks later, I sat in a rocking chair in the living room of my parents' condo in Coralville. They had purchased the place before they sold their house in my hometown to be closer to the hospital and my mom's chemotherapy treatments. I hated it. It was brown and dark and smelled like somebody else. My parents' things were there, but it wasn't ours. It wasn't home. There were other condos available for sale in the area—cheaper, newer ones in places like North Liberty. But my parents wanted to live in Iowa City, where they met, where three of their five children lived, and where they talked of retiring, going to farmer's markets with grandchildren, and attending plays performed at the University of Iowa Theatre and Hancher Auditorium. But Iowa City was priced for renters and doctors, North Liberty was too far, and they needed something quick, so to Iowa City's neighbor Coralville, it was. Into the old, brown condo by the mall.
I looked around the living room and could still hear my mom, "We'll paint the bedrooms and put a skylight in the kitchen when we get the new roof. That'll open it up. And the fireplace will be really nice this winter. It's hard to find new builds with real, wood-burning fireplaces. They just don't do it anymore."
She always looked for the best in a situation. The bright side. And perhaps that summer, in the heat and in a hurry, as they moved from their house in Clinton and into the old, brown condo by the mall, she thought of a real fire burning in a real fireplace and a Christmas tree and eggnog and all of us in one room opening presents and eating dinner, maybe even playing Parcheesi like we did when we were kids. And maybe this fantasy was just bright enough to look past the old, brown reality.
The furniture had been rearranged. A hospital bed had been wheeled in, and various sleeping bags and makeshift beds were set up on the floor, intended for those who stayed up and took turns sitting watch during what would be her final days.
I rocked back and forth in the chair and prayed the prayers ingrained into my memory over 15 years of Catholic school. I hoped for a miracle, but I didn't ask for one. What I really wanted was that Hollywood ending—that moment before death, specifically before a slow death after illness, where people have epiphanies. The moment of clarity when the battle to live has been lost, and then suddenly everybody who has something to say or do says it and does it. In death, we are reminded of the fragile significance of life. Insults are forgiven. Change is accepted. Sibling rivalries are forgotten, and finally, Diane Keaton or Susan Sarandon looks around the room, smiles, and lets go. Cue: fade to black. Scene change: Christmas, one year later. Mood: life is back to normal. Everyone has learned something. Everyone is better.
In my movie, the last conversation with my mom was about paying my bills on time, being responsible, and wearing hats when it was cold out. It felt more like a "talking to" than something I'd write poetry about later. I went back to my bedroom and checked my bank account and my wardrobe. Was I not doing that? Was I not responsible and working and making money and paying bills and exercising and wearing seasonally appropriate attire? I was 32. I'd been doing it for years. Should I say something? Should I demand better advice? Or an "I love you," at the very least? Or maybe that was my job, to say I love you. Maybe I should have said, "You're right. I will pay my bills and dress appropriately, and I love you, and I'm going to miss you, and thank you for the advice because, quite honestly, I don't know what the fuck I am supposed to do now. How am I going to get over this? Who am I going to call? Who is going to tell me everything's going to be OK?"
But I didn't. I just sat in the rocking chair next to her hospital bed, in the living room of this old, brown condo, drinking coffee and waiting quietly for the breathing to stop and the pain to end for my mom, whom I loved dearly but didn't tell her nearly enough.
I was sad and angry and scared when she died and for years afterward. I believe that when she first got sick, she was hopeful. When she beat it the first time, she was grateful. When it came back, she was exhausted. And when she got her six weeks' notice, she was also sad, angry, and scared. And why wouldn't she be? She was human, after all. But that moment of humanity is not how she would want to be remembered. And it certainly isn't a moment in time where she'd want me to live forever, wondering daily if my life would be different if I would be different had I just said I love you and goodbye.
No. She would want me to remember her and our time together fondly. She would want me to remember when she introduced me to The Wizard of Oz and the magic of the movies, the pride she felt when I chose Iowa for theatre school, and dancing with me when I graduated college. She'd want me to think of all the family home for Thanksgiving, special meals on all our birthdays, reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to and from my grandmother's house on summer drives. She'd want me to stand up and fight for myself and others who needed support. If you have the chance to make someone's life better, take it. If you see someone in need, help them. These were her best qualities, the ones she entrusted to me. She protected me to a fault sometimes. And sure, I'd found myself unhealthy, aimless, and sad, but if she were here, she'd have helped me out. There were so many more moments she'd want me to remember. There were so many memories that didn't end in her dying that she would want me to turn to when I needed her.
Don't ruin everything because of this one thing.
Like the Hamburg Inn. How long had it been since I'd been there? Twelve, maybe fifteen years? But I still remember loving it. I remember the Farmer's Omelet. I remember looking at recently developed photos taken the night before on disposable cameras. I remember laughing with my friends and always talking about ordering a famous pie shake but never actually doing it. I remember heading next door to Hanrahan's Tavern for some hair of the dog and then shopping for knick-knacks at Artifacts Antiques while we lazily decided how we'd spend our Sundays. I remember being happy at The Hamburg Inn, a place unscathed by serous carcinoma. And I can thank my mom for that – for choosing Lou Henri's and protecting The Hamburg Inn from the sadness, the anger, and the fear of losing a parent in the worst possible way. As I started to think about it, I saw more places like the Hamburg Inn. There were more people who loved her and wanted to talk about her and their time together and share how she helped them and how she changed their lives. They were everywhere, these people, these places, these reminders that life is meant for living and loving.
"How much do you weigh?" the nurse asked from the other room.
"Oh, like 165," I lied (which, now that I think about it, was probably insurance fraud). I was embarrassed. But for the first time in a long time, I knew I would be 165 again someday. And then maybe less than that. I'd get a gym membership, and I'd actually go. I knew that I'd be able to run fast again without my knees hurting. I'd be able to drink a glass of wine without drinking two bottles. I knew that I would try my best one more time with my ex – on my terms – before ending it. He was a sad person, who surrounded himself with bad people, and that fucks with a guy, especially when you're in a bad marriage too. I owed him a chance to prove he was who I thought he was when we met, who I believed he could be. I also owed him sobriety and communication and therapy and maybe some sex every once in a while and a hug now and then. And he owed me that, too.
I knew that I would smile again and mean it. I knew there were happy, healthy times ahead because I'd been living in the darkest, saddest existence, and frankly, anything would be better. It had to be better. I just had to want to get better.
As I told my friend Janel on our beach walk, I don't know that we ever get over losing a parent, especially one we love so deeply. I think grief and heartbreak come standard with that experience. But it does get easier. It changes, and you will change if you surround yourself with love and people who love you. You will find happiness again.
Kevin Griffin-McCarthy I am a writer, storyteller, lover, and friend. I write creative non-fiction and memoirs with the hopes of making people laugh, think, and have empathy for one another. I studied theatre at the University of Iowa, and I live in Charleston, SC, with my husband and our snoring, farting French Bulldog, Louis.
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