Chapter 4
...but this pure and more inbred desire of joining to
itself in conjugal fellowship a fit conversing soul
( which desire is properly called love )"is stronger
than death," as the spouse of Christ thought..."
-John Milton "The Doctrine And Discipline Of Divorce."
I stepped down from the 19 Kingsway bus as its
engine buzzed to a complete stop. Somehow I had ceased
to be myself and was feeling dead-tired. The once sturdy
maple trees hung weakly over the streets as I walked on
their crunchy orange-red leaves that had dropped, shaken
by a cold, Arctic wind.
It was October in Vancouver and I had a feeling it
was going to be a rough winter, which was unusual here.
Winters in Vancouver usually meant a lot of rain like her
sister city, Seattle, about a two-hour drive south. I
stopped to look over my shoulder at the snow-hatted
range of mountains that reigned over the city. They were
breathtaking, looking like the ultimate blueberry sundaes.
But this picturesque moment surprisingly turned sour, and
only upset my weak stomach into a mini-volcano as I held
back its avalanche of lunch in my burning throat. I turned
away, lifting my legs as though I were in two feet of snow.
Why did Mother Nature's beauty suddenly leave me so uptight?
Was it something I ate at school maybe? Something was eating
at me so I reflected on my day.
I was twenty and I had only been to two classes
that day at UBC: English and Classical Studies. I wandered
lonely, my head in a cloud thinking of the Professor's quote
of Euripides: "never that which is, shall die". I didn't really
believe it. I kicked the leaves and swore at the neighbour's
barking pit bull as I tried to mount a justification for God or
the after-life. University professors always sent a wave of
new ideas to challenge the "Alps of Science", as Alexander
Pope wrote, and progress to them was a burning drive for the
student to climb the ropes to higher learning. But today I was
stuck in my muddled thoughts.
I thought of my English exam. Normally, I would have
been snowed under with only a B. After all, I had loved Margaret
Atwood's "The Edible Woman" which we had been tested on earlier
and I had seen several themes, apart from her brilliant writing
ability. It was about Anorexia Nervosa and brought attention to the
symbolic suffering of women being dominated by men, like the
heroine, Marian McAlpine, whose illness was about finding herself
and her identity and being eaten alive by despair and confusion.
But, "The Edible Woman" was quite possibly a rallying force for
women to increasingly eat of the fruit of The Tree Of Knowledge
Of Good And Evil, as the liberated Eve did, defiantly. It was a
calling out to men that women were ready to right the harshness
of guarded, domineering "Goblin's Market", Christina Rossetti's
fight and flight of sisters. Even Francis Brook's, "Emily Montague"
or the bland "Pamela" by S. Richardson ( parodied by Fielding's
"Shamela" ) were usurped by the hardy and resourceful Susannah
Moodie, who was like a Woolf in Virgin Mary's jeans, digging the
holes in Sharon Thesen's "Loose Woman Poem."
But something else was biting at my mind . Whatever it
was it was affecting my studies. I approached our yard and saw
my three sisters in the front window. Strange, I thought, my
older sister from Surrey, a distant Vancouver suburb, there with
her two year old daughter, Lila, I noticed. She never came here
and I barely knew her. I entered the house, feeling my heart
trying to escape my chest.
" Glen, " my youngest sister Kari said, " Mom has cancer."
The three were teary-eyed, and I dropped my bag and mouth.
"No, no!...No way!" I think I shouted.
" Yeah, Glen , " said my other younger sister, " It's bad.
The doctors did an exploratory when she collapsed today. She has
bowel cancer. They've given her six months to live."
The next five and a half months were a blur of going to
the hospital, going to school and working. I was in denial, as I
think the entire family was. I lost all faith in life and God as
I angrily watched Mom collapse into the hyena jaws of hungry
death. I was also very pissed off that the doctors were so close
in their prediction of her death.
The service for my mother was large as she was extremely
well-loved. Her maiden name was Meeks, and I hoped the meek would
inherit the Earth. If anyone deserved it, she would be the first.
But, I don't remember crying at the funeral. I held a mountain of
feelings inside but I no longer gave a hill of beans.
A few days after our mother's passing on, the entire family
gathered at my sister's in Surrey. It was about midnight and we were
all talking in the living-room. Suddenly, my niece, Lila, came
running down the hall screaming. Her mother asked her what was wrong,
as my brother-in-law gathered the toddler in his arms.
" I saw Grandma in a brown box ....and there were flowers
and people....and.... I...", sobbed Lila. We settled her down and
finally my sister got her back to sleep. I thought, as my two
brothers did, that she'd simply overheard us talking. But my
brother-in-law and sister revealed that strange things had been
happening with Lila. For one thing, she had an imaginary friend
who she would talk to and seemingly wait for him to answer her.
Strange. I think it was then that I finally understood Euripides,
the Greek writer's quote : "Never that which is shall die."
No comments:
Post a Comment