Somehow It’s August Again...

Good Morning Sissies,

Somehow it’s August again. I went to bed so early last night. I think Sonny was in my dream, but I can’t quite remember. I just have that feeling of having been close to him.

Something special that comes with writing about Sonny is this illusion that we are spending time together. Maybe illusion isn’t the right word.

Here’s an excerpt from a piece I’ve been working on this summer…

The two-week period between my brother’s brain surgery and the pathology results felt a little like borrowed time, a little like purgatory. Death was lingering around us, months away, but nothing was certain yet so we could still close our eyes and pretend. Waiting for two weeks felt like a long time, but when the timespan from diagnosis to death is only seven months, a long time is really no time at all. Time moves differently when you are told you may not have much of it left. There are minutes that feel like seconds and hours that are eternities. More life could happen to you within the constraints of a day than I had ever imagined. Everyone says that your life can change in an instant, but it is near impossible to understand the gravity of what that means until you experience it yourself, until a headache actually is a brain tumor. 

My brother’s operation went as well as it could. The entirety of the big tumor had been removed. They weren’t sure if they would be able to get it all, but they did. The reality was that there were still other tumors. Several. But we got The Big One. His surgeon was a very large man– a slight duck under the doorway when entering a room type of large. I remember his hands. Staring at them and comparing them to my own and then to the size of my face. I thought about these giant hands and all of the places they must be so helpful: playing basketball, carrying the groceries, holding an infant, making love. But I could not imagine how they could be helpful inside of my brother’s brain at that size. 

 I didn’t focus on any of the smaller tumors at this time, not yet. They felt irrelevant in the beginning when the only focus was the surgery due to the sheer size and danger of The Big One. On scans, it looked like the size of a tennis ball.  I wondered what it might look like in the palm of my hand. What was the weight of it? The shape of it? Did they take it out whole? How big even are brains? Being in the presence of this surgeon made me feel stupid. I didn’t know anything. No wonder he is so large. So God-like this, giant, giant man. So easy to put your faith in. Somehow those giant hands were gentle enough to take out what needed to go without messing up anything that needed to stay.