multiplier effect
how one harvest can lead to another harvest
apherisis.
I’m not sure if I’m doing this right.
Today marks twelve months since Fonz received his collected and cleaned stem cells.
The ones that multiplied to fill his body with something else,
wiping clean old parts.
If I said it had been a year,
it might sound closer to the appropriate amount of time.
But this science counts itself in months.
Which makes it twelve sets of thirty-ish days,
which sounds smaller than 365.
It’s something about time travel.
It always is.
Measuring time against space against seasons against science against love against grief.
Against cancer.
Everyone is still sleeping, and I’m not sure what to reach for first.
What’s hanging in the air around me.
How we had already been in Menlo Park for two days,
when the nurses came barging into our hospital room with a “rebirthday” cake.
It would be another three weeks before we first shaved his head in the backyard of our rental,
and then his beard.
How I sat at his feet and wept,
and he did the same above me.
Into my hair.
All of this is still there in my body.
We sat outside,
but he had to wear a respirator,
the huge kind that covers your whole face and feels like you’re breathing through a straw.
The longing for the girls splayed out on the grass with us.
How the longing went with us everywhere.
Which in those weeks was only to the hospital and back.
The heartbreak for Fonz.
For all of us.
Beyond us.
The whole world.
The organization of medicines.
The pleading that he take them.
The cooking, the cleaning, the feeding.
The crying.
The altars all around the house.
The sweet, sweet air conditioning on those one hundred degree days.
The early morning calls to friends in other places.
The walking up and down and all around a foreign neighborhood.
Doing my best to make it familiar.
My body, a jar.
Each cell so full of anniversary.
Heat. Acid. Heart.
I’m not sure how to trace the outline of this anymore,
what to fill the center with.
How the shapes of things change depending on where you are looking.
Where the light is. What time of day. Who you are.
How gratitude isn’t always the answer to everything.
But sometimes it’s a balm to an open wound.
How breathing can help.
And chips and salsa.
How being grateful is different than gratitude.
Don’t ask me why, I feel it in my bones.
There was fear. There was angst. Desperation. Pleading. Praying. There were tears.
The unknown, my forever companion.
Anger. Frustration. Gentleness. Forgetting. Surrender. Sacrifice.
There were trees everywhere.
The light looked different than I expected.
It was more fall than summer.
But it was summer.
There was work. There was rest. There was staying up late and waking up early.
There were letters. And calls. Crystals. Care packages. There were prayers. There were updates. Appointments. Prescriptions.
Walks from the parking lot to the comprehensive cancer center felt like miles,
but they were approximately one thousand feet.
There were black squirrels, tiny bunnies, and hummingbirds.
There were two dinners at the same restaurant.
And then every meal at a coffee table facing the couch.
Sometimes he lay down for every bite.
There was quiet. There was noise.
There were trashy real estate shows.
There were hugs.
There was mind reading, face reading, and temperature checking.
There was hair.
Cleaning products. Laundry. Air purifiers. There was changing of the sheets.
Standing outside. Tarot cards. Yoga. Lying on the floor.
There were nurses and doctors, and we had our favorites.
There was protective gear.
There was a chaplain.
But all I can remember is love.