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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