Master of deceit
Already another Happy New Year started My youngest sister called , her new husband has throat cancer . She ' s the one who calls me when there ' s bad news to share : our mother has a mastectomy scheduled Tuesday . Dad has a cyst on his kidney , the doctor doesn ' t yet know exactly what it is . My brother ' s trailer burnt down last week . This is the kind of news she shares — otherwise , I would be blissfully unaware of family-tragedy . Her husband is 50 , not even a year older than me . And I am reminded of the stack of memories piling up of the dead that already haunt me . Then a day goes by and my sister calls back again to tell me , it ' s not just cancer of the throat but also the liver and lungs are affected . This is almost too much to listen to in a twominute conversation . Whole lives are lived and lost as I eye my cigarettes last long ash fall . It could be worse , she said . But I don ' t share her optimism . I have a vision of his / her drawnout pain and suffering , the agony of defeated dreams of living long and prospering . Someone forgot to paint the lamb ' s blood on the door that death looks over . I try to imagine whatever I was doing a minute before her call , was life affirming , normal and , without diagnoses . I tell her I don ' t like to speak of other people ' s illness . It ' s not good for their psyche . Of course , this goes over like a popped balloon and she says ' Oh '. Above all , I am amazed by her calm . But even as kids , she was the level headed one of us — unafraid of saying what ' s real . Unlike me , who likes to pretend
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