This is the eighth of Penny’s Cancerland essays. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in February, 2016. Emergency surgery in February, followed by recovery, then 12 biweekly chemotherapy infusions beginning in April, and then an even bigger surgery in November, followed by an even longer recovery brought many changes.
But some parts of who we are don’t change easily.
Last February as part of that world-record commando run to be there for Anika’s recital, we managed a modest but cute reception afterwards for her, her professors, and friends. I had borrowed large rather elegant water dispensers from Susan (a resourceful woman who always has such things to lend). We filled them with water, ice, and with strawberries, lemon wedges, and orange slices to add color, flavor, and fun. We had a great assortment of Anika’s favorite snacks presented in the trendy white dishware I packed along and nicely arranged near the napkins and plates – in the school colors, of course. I had ample snack stores along and made sure to send them back to the dorms with Anika and all her friends as study treats – enough to last until spring break.
Naturally, I had also organized coverage for my courses back on my home campus: my competent TA was in charge and had detailed lesson plans to rely on. The homework for that entire week had been distributed the Friday before in both my classes, leaving the students with clear assignments and directions. Monday afternoon I would collect the quizzes and notes from my TA and then be back in the classroom on Tuesday. Such was the foolproof planning for the 36 hours I intended to be out of town – a snapshot of the workflow of the conscientious PhD-professor-mentor-mom-wife that was Me.
I’m quite aware that I had a fine set of faults that accompanied me wherever I went back then (and even more nowadays), but in general I thought of myself as a successful Do-er: efficient, thoughtful, organized, highly productive, reliable, caring, encouraging, kind, going the extra mile even under pressure and when it’s not easy. At least, that is how I wanted to see myself. Anyway, a year later that person, whether she actually existed or was just a sometimes successful facade, has disappeared. I look back at that self like a picture in a scrapbook. Okay, maybe like a one-year anniversary reminder from facebook. Or a long dissolved snapchat image.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be that person again. I try not to think about it too much, probably because I’m afraid the answer is “no.”
When I lead workshops on cultural intelligence or when my students and I are discussing how to understand other cultures and people, we often talk about cultural orientations – general tendencies of the majority. One of the biggies is: Doing versus Being. What’s more important to most people in your life? What’s valued in a society or community more: productivity, accomplishments, and trophies OR relationships, cooperation, and hospitality? It’s not an “either-or” proposition. Cultures, organizations, and individuals are usually some of each: doing-focused and being-conscious. But we tend toward one end or the other of this spectrum.
I like to think that I used to be hospitable. I love drinking tea with students and colleagues, my niece, and my mom. But until recently these tea times were crammed in between other commitments on the calendar. You know the drill – trying to find a day to grab a quick lunch with a friend, getting your son to actually commit to a dinner time between track practice and the football game, exasperation as you realize you booked a dentist appointment over top of the yoga class you already missed last week. Have you tried recently to set up a meeting with more than five people? It takes a dozen emails and complicated app-assisted polling to make it happen, and even then there’s always someone who has to come late or leave early or miss it altogether. My sub-culture and maybe yours too is definitely on the Doing end. If your calendar isn’t full, you are either a social introvert or not using your time productively. You might even be labeled as “lazy.”
Right now as I write this, and honestly for so much of the past year, I’m stuck in “Being-Land.” I used to make hot breakfast for everyone, clean up the kitchen, teach classes, meet with students, chair a committee meeting, plan lessons, grade quizzes, all while staying on top of my email in-box, and then head home to whip up a dinner without using pre-packaged anything and often still manage to have fresh apple pie for dessert, clean up the mess, and upload handouts or links to the websites for my courses before bed. On particularly good days, I could even fill my bento box with enticing nibbles for lunch, write the check for Jason’s viola lessons, and remember to collect donations for the upcoming administrative assistants’ day. In contrast, when you’re stuck in the Being-kingdom of Cancerland, the list of accomplishments stars things like: “got dressed” and “brushed teeth” and “remembered to take all my meds.” Okay, I admit: I hardly ever take all my meds without someone reminding me. Call out thanks to husband and both my boys. But if any of you tell me that I should drink another glass of water any more often than you already do, I may be obliged to go beyond giving you the evil eye.
Not so long ago, I ventured, oh so briefly, into the Kingdom of Doing. What a complete disaster! I wanted to help my mother get some slippers. By the time we drove to the store and located the slipper display, both of us were already tired out. But once you’ve gotten to the store and the possibilities are neatly hanging in front of you, you’ve got to give it a try, right? I found a short table covered with jumbled pajamas and shoved them to the side, so Mom could sit down. WHY are there no chairs in stores anymore? I don’t shop faster because there aren’t chairs. Dear Store Managers: I would spend more time in your store, if I or my mother could just sit and rest a few minutes in between housewares and slippers! And, really, am I the only one who wants to SIT when trying on footwear? After 15 minutes of fetching and returning beige, navy, mediums, larges, black, cloggy, ballet types, and booties, we left the store. Fortunately, we didn’t have to stand in line at the cashiers because we never found slippers we wanted.
What made the venture a disaster, rather than just a disappointment, was the nausea that hit me like a brick as soon as I got to the car. After sitting in the restaurant parking lot waiting for the crisp winter air to whisk away the queasy feelings, I thought I’d give it a try. We got seated in a booth, but the dining room was wobbling, the pictures on the menu made me even sicker, and I wanted to cry. Not only had I just failed at the Doing, but now I was failing at the Being. Mom asked for her lunch to-go. The rest of the day was a lost cause, except that my three boys got to bawl me out, each in their own special way:
Rand: Why didn’t you have all your anti-nausea meds along?
Andrew: What are doing trying to help Gramma with stuff? That’s what I’m here for.
Jason: Mom, don’t you understand yet? (He’s 17 and still figuring out how to tell his mom that she’s been naughty.) You are actually sicker than Grandma. Stop acting like you’re not.
The only things on my calendar nowadays are medical appointments. Heaps of those. If only the Cancer Pavilion (Yes, that is really what it’s called.) had a frequent customer program! By now I would have collected enough punches or points for a free trip to Hawaii.
With so little on my calendar and the fresh memories of disastrous ventures into Doing, I’m trying to focus on Being. Recently I ate breakfast at the same time as Mom. I nursed a cup of tea while she carefully broke her spekulatus cookies in half and dunked them bit by bit in her cup of instant coffee. We chatted about being sick and the failed slipper mission, and we agreed to a competition: who can gain more weight in the next two weeks. Breakfast lasted so long, we went straight into warming up leftovers for lunch.
It is good for me to realize that there is more to me and to my life than the books I publish, the courses I design, the decisions I make, the meals I cook, the products of Do-ing. So, does that time of Being with Mom indicate my embrace of a more Being orientation to life? I’d like to think so, but I have some doubts: “Learning to appreciate Being more” is on my list of things to accomplish during these months of recovery. It’s on the list right near “Finish that book manuscript for work” and “Write about this journey.”
Twice in the last couple weeks I ran into people who had not yet seen me since Penny’s death. The first were friends of my parents. We engaged in a rather typical, brief exchange: “So sorry…” “Thanks…” and moved on.
The second exchange was with a retired university colleague whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. “I can’t believe it. I never even knew she was sick.” Many people have commented to me over these months about how productive Penny remained even while in Cancerland. Some, like this colleague, didn’t even know she was living there.
Doing remained an important part of who Penny was, and we learned how to organize things to make sure the most important things happened. We would talk about it terms of her battery, which required more time to recharge and drained more quickly than it had before. Each day was orchestrated around having enough juice in the battery at the right time of the day. A work meeting at Calvin was often preceded by a leisurely morning and followed by a complete collapse into our most comfortable sofa. It was not uncommon for Penny to fall asleep at the dinner table.
We talked from time to time about whether she should retire. She had plenty of other things she could do and enjoy. But she also liked her work, and it wasn’t until Spring 2024 that she finally decided it was no longer reasonable to continue “doing” it.
But it is also true that being took on a more prominent role in our daily and weekly rhythm than it had before. I remember once, years ago, after my younger sister visited, she asked me: “Rand, when do you just do nothing?” I didn’t have an answer. She has always been better and being than I have been. Even on vacation, my usual tendency is to want to pack as much into each day as possible.
But when Penny’s battery had been spent long before dinner, our evenings became more about just being – just doing nothing – together. To be fair, Penny would often knit, if she was up for it. Knitting was in a special category where doing and being intersected. Penny could knit while carrying on a conversation, or just relaxing, or watching a movie, but there was also a goal and a product that came from it. It was a doer’s way of being, I guess.
Knitting also became a key diagnostic tool for me; the K-index, we called it. Knitting normally, knitting slowly, interested in knitting but not really making any progress, not even interested in knitting – that pretty much told me how she was feeling on a given day. She always brought knitting to the hospital, and the K-index was a pretty reliable indicator about when it was time to return home.
