The scented pencils come in root beer, bubble gum, watermelon and so much more. Individually, they smell like manufactured childhood, like a pack of bright colored gum or a handful of candies in clear wrappers. Together, they smell like a pillowcase full of Halloween loot left in the back of your car on a hot day.
We will no doubt wind up keeping this bucket of Smencils, minus the few that my son will sell for his fifth grade fundraiser, just like his brother did last year. The problem is that the target audience for a Smencil is decidedly under age 14, and yet the kids aren’t allowed to sell them on the school bus or at Boy Scouts meetings or other places where children congregate. He can’t very well bring them to soccer practice, anyhow, to sell to other fifth graders who have their own buckets of Smencils at home, and he’s not supposed to sell door-to-door. So the bucket sits on our kitchen counter, bringing back vague memories of getting sick at a birthday party in kindergarten every time I walk by it.
And that’s fine with me. In fact, it’s downright wonderful. (more…)
My hospital room view, only here it's from my car in traffic on the FDR Drive.
I made a deal with the Sun: You keep rising every morning from behind the smokestacks that hover over the buildings on Roosevelt Island, and I’ll fight another day.
And then every morning I’d wait, watching the waves on the East River, at first a deep, midnight blue, and then solid gray, and finally, brownish gray as the Sun kept its promise to me. I’d slide off my bed, careful not to yank out the tubes carrying the orange drugs into my arm, and roll my chemo pole into the bathroom.
The Sun was up, and so was I. As promised. But my end of the bargain was harder to keep. (more…)
That’s what I wrote in my Facebook status this week when several friends suggested that I post the color of my bra to raise awareness for breast cancer. I did it in solidarity to my sisters — friends, family members and others — who’ve battled breast cancer. Also, to appease the breast cancer gods because, you see, I had radiation to my chest and I am, therefore, at a high risk for breast cancer. (more…)
Back then, I could keep up with him on the soccer field more easily.
He was 18, and I had no business being there. It was too much, too soon, and yet, I didn’t want to leave.
I was playing right defense on my brother Scott’s “over-the-hill” soccer team, guarding a kid who’d tagged along with his dad so he could get ready for his league match later that day. Apparently, dribbling around me – a middle-aged mother of two who was not quite a year in remission from an aggressive form of lymphoma – was this kid’s warm-up. For me though, just standing on the turf field in my soccer cleats so soon after completing six rounds of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiation was a comeback. Or it was supposed to be. (more…)
Last month, I held a fundraiser and remission party called “Kiss Cancer Goodbye” here in my community. More than 150 people came to support the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, eat good food at the Smoke Rise Village Inn and dance to music by the Flying Mueller Brothers and the Sugar Hill Gang. They also came to hear my speech, “If Cancer is a Gift, Where Can I Return it?”, about my battle with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
My friend Kanokan Sookaram caught the festivities on film, so that everyone who couldn’t be there — and even those who were — can enjoy.
First, here’s my speech, “If Cancer is a Gift, Where Can I Return it?”, followed by a video about the party:
Matt Lane giving his speech while I try not to cry.
I couldn’t pay too much attention to their words, or I’d cry. And the mistress of ceremonies shouldn’t cry, right? Not when she has to get up in front of 150 people and persuade them to give money to a good cause, kids with cancer. (more…)
I forgot to unzoom the camera, and yet I love the shot.
By the time Bruce Springsteen sang it to us live at Madison Square Garden last night, it had become a not-so-private joke between us. So when Bruce sang the opening lines to “Out in the Street,” my brother, Scott, and I laughed and high-fived each other, acknowledging that it was the perfect ending to a magical weekend. (more…)
He couldn’t just stand by and watch me attempt to kill another washing machine. So, my husband Pete took the sheets and blankets out of my hands and redistributed them in the washer before pouring in the detergent and pushing the start button.
“Happy anniversary,” Pete said and kissed me on the cheek. (more…)
I’ve got a bucket of Smencils.
I’d just sat down for my pedicure when I realized what was on TV in the nail salon: The Young and the Restless had a cancer storyline.
He couldn’t just stand by and watch me attempt to kill another washing machine. So, my husband Pete took the sheets and blankets out of my hands and redistributed them in the washer before pouring in the detergent and pushing the start button.
