Free Marrow by Elizabeth Lesser Page A

the way home, we stopped at lou’s restaurant for lunch. wearing my saliva-smelling, hot, steamy mask, we sat at the counter and i fell apart, letting the tears soak the mask. denise, my waitress, a cancer survivor herself (who knew?), came to my rescue. one look at my bald head and my mask, and she came right over, first with a hug. then a quick lesson in breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth, then a pep talk, then she gave me a book of quotes. then a caramel cupcake. denise pointed out this quote from gilda radner: “if it wasn’t for the downside, having cancer would be the best thing and everyone would want it.” i used to hate when people said things like that. but it’s true. this disease teaches you what’s important, and as it turns out it’s the things you already have. your kids, your mate, your home, a good meal, a good friend, a good day. but here’s my favorite quote from the book, by roger ebert, who has a terrible, face-eating kind of cancer: “i believe that if, at theend of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. to make others less happy is a crime. to make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. we must try to contribute joy to the world. that is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. we must try.”
    so, i will try. i will try to proceed with good cheer because “to make others less happy is a crime.” i don’t want to be a criminal! “to make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts.” that’s something i am just beginning to understand. i hope i’ll get some more years to live by those words.

THE MYSTERY
    ONCE AGAIN WE TRAIPSE INTO the cancer ward at the hospital to meet with the oncology team. Their team: one doctor; one nurse; one transplant coordinator. Our team: Oliver, Maggie’s partner; Norah and Hayden, Maggie’s kids; me; and, of course, Maggie, her clothes hanging off her tiny body, her eyes looking even larger and darker than usual. The teams wear uniforms. The nurses are in light green scrubs; their masks hang below their chins. The doctor wears his white coat, his white hair neatly trimmed. Team Maggie is a motley crew. I’ve come straight from New York and I look like it—black pants, black sweater, black boots and coat. Maggie’s son, Hayden, is a forester; he’s dressed in a red wool sweater, canvas pants, and steel-tipped boots. When I hug him, he smells of pine trees and chainsaw grease. Her daughter, Norah, owns a large working farm; I’ve always admired the way she still dresses like a college girl in whimsical outfits, even though she spends her time fixing tractors and feeding pigs. We crowd into the small, antiseptic examining room. We are talking and joking, happy to be with each other despite the jittery circumstances. Our noise and textures and odors bring the forbidden mess and germs of the world into the hospital. We seem completely out of place, until I remind myself that this is what the place is made for—the mess and germs of being human.
    It’s time for Maggie to decide. We take our seats. There are somany of us I double up with my nephew and we hold onto each other. The doctor reviews the options: if Maggie chooses not to proceed with the transplant, she will die soon, and if she chooses the transplant, it may kill her. Of course, he doesn’t come right out and say this—he never does—but that’s the hidden message in his vaguely worded script. And if she survives the transplant, we ask again, are there any numbers of months or years to hang this decision on? Again, vague answers that we have already heard.
    Although people surround her in the crowded room, I know Maggie feels alone, wrestling with conflicting magnetic pulls. The pull to live for as long as possible, here