Three days ago or so as I sit down to write this, my friend Sweet Jane succumbed to terminal cancer.
She had been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer when her youngest child (of four) was three months old. Statistically speaking, she never should have gotten breast cancer — she did all the things and had all the attributes that put her in the lowest possible risk group of women for breast cancer — but having gotten it and having detected it so late into its growth, statistically speaking, it was extremely unlikely she’d live long enough to see her youngest child’s fifth birthday.
Having lived long enough to watch her oldest head off to college and her youngest turn 11, it’s fair to say she won her battle with cancer. She won it every single day for over eleven years. She was there for her children during most of their formative years, she worked in special education when treatments didn’t interfere, she was on her kids’ high school PTA, she volunteered to raise funds for cancer research, and she pursued all the bucket list-type things that people who know they are dying realize they need to get going on. She was a force of nature, and now she is gone.
This is not her story.
When my then-wife Penny and I were expecting our first child, we attended the various parenting classes that hospitals often have for mommies and daddies to-be. The hospital also had a parent/baby group that met once a… week? Month? I think it was monthly. Anyway, they started a new group every one or two months or so, which meant that in each such group, new parents whose babies were at roughly the same stages of development would all get together in this big, friendly classroom-type room and share their gripes and joys and questions and concerns, all while sitting in a big circle on the floor with their little babies lying (laying?) on their blankies in front of them, and a medically-trained expert in maternity and infant health issues would facilitate the discussion and answer questions.
I say this was a parent’s group because that’s what the hospital called it, but that was, quite frankly, a bald-faced lie. It was a mommies’ group. Because they called it a parent’s group, and because Penny and I actually were partners in the truest sense of the world at that time in our lives, I showed up to that first class.
“Ohhh, it’s so nice to see a daddy join us!” The facilitator and other moms cooed at how nice and supportive it was of me to attend. I felt very welcome. Then, we all sat around in a circle, shared stories and concerns about what the babies were doing or not doing, what the mommies’ bodies were doing or not doing, and then the mommies all freakin’ unloaded on the daddies like they were all a bunch of no-show, absentee do-nothings who helped not at all and understood nothing.
So, that was the last time I attended that noise.
And, I get it. Mommies gotta get together and vent to others who understand their woes. Fair enough. Employees gotta gripe about their ignorant bosses and kids gotta commiserate that parents just don’t understand. So, Penny would take our baby with her to this big ol’ mommies/babies class, and the group continued to meet for quite some time.
Before long, Penny started to get to know a few of the other new mommies in particular who lived in roughly the same area as we did. This was how she found herself in this emerging group of friends that included Sweet Jane and three others. They had a lot in common. They were all bright, they were all a little older than most new moms, they all worked, and they all had brilliant, successful husbands. (You’re allowed to laugh at that, by the way.)
Soon, the Mommies organized a backyard barbeque for our families to all meet, and the men also hit it off. The cookouts became a regular thing, and then there were the kids’ birthday parties (which, of course, were all within a month or so of each other), Halloween trips to the pumpkin patch, and so on. As the kids grew up, they became each other’s first friends outside of day care or next-door neighbors. The kids would often have sleepovers at each other’s houses.
All five of our families welcomed our respective second children into the world at around the same time, as well. So, that was fun.
Three of our families had an additional round of kids, once more at roughly the same time as each other (Sweet Jane and her hubby were a little bit ahead of us), but it was at this time that the cracks in my marriage to Penny had become too much. It was at around this time that I started this blog to talk out-loud about the problems in our marriage to you, my kind readers, rather than poison the proverbial well with Penny’s and my mutual friends. It was another year or so before our impending break-up became known to our friends.
We never made an announcement, as such. Never posted on Facebook that this was happening. But, as we were preparing to move into separate houses, both of which would be just a few blocks away from one of the other families in our little Mommies group, we had to let everyone know what was happening. We told them that it was amicable. We still would be doing things as a family, and we wanted to continue all the activities we’d been doing as a group all this time.
Except.
One of the other families had decided to relocate to California at around this time. So, there was that.
And Sweet Jane had her fourth kid, and then… well, her diagnosis.
When a cancer is labeled Stage 4, that means it has already spread to other parts of the body. You can try to cut it out wherever you can find it, and then radiate and poison the hell out of those areas and hope that it doesn’t come back, but once you’ve hit Stage 4, it’s coming back. With breast cancer, it’s going to come back fast and it’s going to come back deadly. Once you’ve got Stage 4, you’ll be considered a “survivor” if you manage to live another 5 years after the diagnosis, and that’s a very rare thing when it started as breast cancer.
Anyway.
Sweet Jane’s family, understandably, had to circle the wagons and deal with the matters at hand. The family that was moving to California understandably did what they could to offer encouragement to Sweet Jane but were otherwise focused on building their new lives in California. And the other two families, why, of course it’s absolutely understandable that they would be offering as much support to Sweet Jane as their spare time would allow.
Penny and I were dealing with our own issues, and so when we extended our offers of help and support, we weren’t entirely shocked when the only response we got was mumbles that there was already a battery of people standing by, but they appreciated the offer.
And I guess we weren’t entirely shocked when, despite repeated attempts at organizing a family pizza night with the other Mommies family who lived just a couple blocks away, they were too busy with their oldest who had behavioral issues or the twins or their jobs or helping out Sweet Jane or mumble, mumble, mumble. It was all understandable. But we’d get together soon.
Here’s the thing. Divorce is contagious. There have been studies that prove it. I think that most people have an innate suspicion that this is the case, even if they aren’t actually aware of the statistics. Divorce is no longer ostracized in American society the way it once was, but it’s nonetheless still… a source of unease.
So, it’s all perfectly understandable.
And when Sweet Jane’s cancer was in remission, and her husband didn’t reply to my comments on his Facebook posts or that one phone call here or that one instant message there, why… well, I’m sure he had other things on his mind.
And my oldest did have over his friend from that Mommies family who lives nearby for a birthday party sleep-over once or twice (maybe more?), and I think he was also invited to sleep over there once or twice, and I’m sure the boys saw each other at school, but they, too, drifted apart. And when I noticed the pictures on Facebook of the barbecues they were hosting in their back yard…. well, okay. That stung a little bit.
I’m not always great at returning phone calls. I’m not always great at replying to e-mails. Or Facebook messages. So, I know that sometimes it just happens, and it’s genuinely not intended as a slight. I know this. And I feel bad for every time I’ve done it to others.
This is not a “woe is me” post. (Woe am I?) It might be an apology. It might be me just processing a shitty situation.
There’s a thing that locals sometimes refer to as the “Seattle Freeze,” and I’ve been feeling a touch of it ever since Penny and I got divorced. That’s not entirely fair, of course. I do have friends here. There is even a family that my family occasionally gets together with to go see movies and share a meal, and if I have to be the one to initiate the invitation most times, well, I guess that’s just the dynamic and it is what it is.
The last time I saw Sweet Jane — in fact, I think it may be the only time I’d seen her since her diagnosis and my divorce — she saw me at the nearby supermarket and excitedly said hello. It was almost comedic in nature: I was there with my then-girlfriend who was visiting from out of town, and Fae wandered off very naturally so as to not invite any potential awkwardness. This was several years ago, and Fae and I never really acknowledged publicly that we were together.
Anyway.
Jane caught me up on her goings-on, and her warmth and genuine happiness to bump into me was really kind of awesome. She was such a shining light.
…and on more than one occasion, the thought has crossed my mind that if it could bring her back to her family, I’d trade my life for hers.
Note: I wrote the above pretty much exactly is you see it now, all in one sitting and while I was in a particularly morose mood. Recognizing how dark that last sentence was, I decided to wait before publishing this little missive. I have spoken with a friend or two about it, and one kindly informed me that what I was feeling (or, at least, part of what I was feeling) when I wrote this was “survivor’s guilt.”
I am now reading this several weeks later, and I have since attended Sweet Jane’s “Celebration of Life.” I’ve decided to let this version of the post stand — abrupt ending and all — but there is a little more I need to tell you about Sweet Jane and the Mommies. More on that soon.
It Never Rains In Seattle 
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