Cancer Season
I’m sitting in the playroom surrounded by colorful walls. There are beautiful blue and green ducks, a Happy Birthday picture with little orange and red painted handprints from the kids, deserts and graffiti art, Protect Abortion posters and elephants playing basketball.
There’s a picture missing, though. I need to print a picture of Stephanie, frame it and hang it in here. Then she’ll always be with us.
“Who’s that?” Trey asks me while Irie pushes around a red plastic grocery cart with her strong and confident legs.
I loosen my jaw. “That’s auntie Stephanie! Do you remember her?”
“Hm?” He chimes in a high-pitched soft sweet voice.
I look around for something to grab, maybe a pillow or a book.
The Rainbow Fish is the closest thing.
“Do you like this book?” I exhale invisibly, studying the curves of his toddler cheeks.
“Ba! Ba!” his words for a resounding yes. I understand his language without translation.
“You know how this beautiful rainbow fish has all these scales” I sing the word all and stay there a little longer than the other words.
For once I feel like my jaw is clenching shut while my mind and heart are truly trying to find the right words. I surrender and just start reading the book, but in my own way.
“Okay. You see this fish is so beautiful, right?” Okay, this isn’t too hard.
He looks at me patiently with beautiful brown eyes that hold my universe. Irie is crawling over to the chest of drawers to discover some new adventure.
“They have all these beautiful, beautiful scales and they shine so so bright.” I exhale and keep with the repetition and emphasis like it’s helping me trod along.
“What color is the ocean, Trey?” I encourage his confidence.
“BUU!” He points to the background of the pages in front of us, where the fish and seaweed swirl.
“Yep. And so the little rainbow fish attracts ALL these friends” I emphasize all again.
“And one day, he or she (whatever they want to be) gives a single pretty scale to another fish who doesn’t have any.”
“But she (I guess she’s a she in this case) gets worried that if she gives all her scales away she wont have any more.”
“But she does it anyway.”
“She eventually has just one scale left but it doesn’t matter. Do you know why?”
“Because she is surrounded by a sea of fishies who all share the same glitter scales, all because she decided to share hers.”
I look to the playroom wall, collaged and mixed and imperfect and close my eyes, then move my eyes to a black and white photo of Stephanie that’s in my mind.
“Stephanie is Mama’s sweet friend. She is a therapist. You know how you’re a Cancer since you were born in July. Well, Mama’s friend also knew cancer, but a different kind.”
“She’s still here. Mama reads screenshots of her old texts. There was this app called Talkspace.” I annunciate the syllables while staring at my little child’s face. He flips the book upside down and eventually stands to find another.
I keep talking.
“I love Stephanie very very much, and when we stopped having our weekly dates it made Mama very sad.”
“Stephanie gave Mama her glitter scales and now I can give them to you.”
“Where’s Irie?” I redirect my story.
He points to his baby sister.
“Yes, I can give the scales to baby sister too.”
“Where is she?” I imagine he asks, even if he’s now occupied with some toy ducks and I know his verbal skills are in reality not quite there yet. I imagine he asks so that I can ask myself.
Another deep breath in.
“She’s like the rainbow fish.” I’m talking to myself now. “She’s in the ocean, she’s in every sparkle. She’s in me and you and even in these pillows we rest our heads on. She’s in the plastic grocery cart, she’s in the spiders that build webs out on our balconies.”
I decide to talk directly to Stephanie now, reluctant to sound utterly insane, but it’s just me and the kids. Just me really, so I say what the hell.
Hi Stephanie,
Irie turns one next month. She’s so gorgeous and fiery and true and you would love her.
Trey, I don’t need to describe him, you already know his energy is unmatched.
What am I supposed to do without you?
Why didn’t we have more sessions, more time? Why didn’t I say I love you more.
Can a therapist really be a friend? Can you really love them? I don’t know why I’m asking that. So rhetorical.
I breathe again. Letting my fingers fly.
You know how this house is like Hogwarts? How we love Slytherin and how the cleaning supplies are in the Harry Potter closet?
I want to thank you for the magic you shared with my life. I have created something infinitely beautiful with it and I thought I would feel sad or empty telling you this but it’s almost as if as the words pour out they fill me up, instead of deplete me of some imaginary energy I thought would be drained.
Wild how that happens huh? When you let go, and act with pure love.
Pureness is hard to come by lately. It’s so hard to discern but when I look at my children, when I step into the sand on the beach, when I dream, I feel it.
I want to say I’m sorry but I know there isn’t anything to be sorry for.
You’re there, somewhere I couldn’t possibly describe, with my little blueberry baby and your baby too.
Becoming a mom has been an opening experience. I’m so grateful you were here in real life to guide me. I know you still do.
