Manjusha Pawagi - Love and Laughter in the Time of Chemotherapy

Chapter One

I used to lie awake at night, planning my husbands funeral. He is not dying. He is not even sick. He did have Hodgkins lymphoma, but that was when he was an undergraduate student, almost thirty years ago, and he has been in remission ever since. Still, his treatment, as cancer treatments often do, ravaged his body and lungs, and he is prone to getting chest infections. So I worried. If he so much as sneezed, I would picture it as the beginning of the end. I could not stand to think of the loss, so I would concentrate on the actual funeral instead. It made me feel like I had some control. Plus, I like planning things.

And so Id lie there, glancing occasionally at my clock radio as 3:45 a.m. gave way to 4:17, and then to 5:03, Simon sound asleep beside me. Friends complain about husbands snoring, but I have the opposite issue. I have never known such a silent sleeper. I would have to hold my own breath to catch even the smallest sound of breathing from him, and then I could finally relax. I would worry that I was dreaming him and Id gently pinch him to make sure he was real.

If you think youre dreaming, he once said pointedly, youre supposed to pinch yourself , not me.

I always start with the music; all Leonard Cohen, because it is so naturally funereal. But not actually sung by Leonard Cohen, because that would be too much. I want to move people, not make them suicidal. I intend to use Toronto torch singer Patricia OCallaghan, whose covers of Leonard Cohen I have had on constant repeat in my car for six months straight. Ill start with my favorite, The Window. Its so beautiful that I hit repeat before it finishes because Im sad at the thought of it ending even before it does (the same way I think about Simons imminent demise). Im not sure the cello introduction is long enough, but ideally it will last until people settle down and realize the service is beginning. And then Patricia will start with the words Why do you stand by the window

Next will be Dance Me to the End of Love during the slide show. It might be tricky, but I would like to time the photos of Simon and our twins, Jack and Anna, to appear with the line Dance me to the children who are asking to be born. Theres one photo I would save for the little card you give everyone as a memento; its the one of Simon on the deck of my parents cottage, tanned and smiling straight at me (since Im the photographer). He has a baby in each arm; Jack and Anna are about eight months old, their big brown eyes are looking at me solemnly, as only babies can look. Simons gray eyes are crinkled up by his smile.

My eyes are sky blue, he corrects me.

I will end with Hallelujah. I know, I know, youre thinking that is so overdone and obvious, but Ive got a surprise in mind. All the boys and girls in the Canadian Childrens Opera Company that Anna sings with will be sitting in the balcony in their black and white uniforms. At the chorus, where the word Hallelujah is repeated a gazillion times, they will rise to their feet as one and join in with their perfect child voices. The audience will be stunned and amazed and will barely have time to recover before ushers quietly and efficiently distribute handfuls of rose petals, real ones, not fake, for everyone to scatter on the casket (closed).

Youre probably wondering, how is she so good at this? (And you may be wondering other things as well.) So I have to reveal that Simons is not the first death I have anticipated. When I was a child, if my parents returned home even five minutes later than they said they would, I would assume they had been killed by a drunk driver, and that my little brother and I were now orphans. Harish would be there in his pajamas, clutching the board game Aggravation to his chest, begging me to play with him. And I, excellent elder sister/babysitter that I am, would be stationed at the living room window, watching for my parents to turn into our suburban cul-de-sac, and simultaneously running through a mental list of our family friends, looking for potential alternative homes.

Even into my early twenties it continued. I once dated a man who was forty when I was twenty-four. I spent every minute of our time together doing the math. When Im forty, hell be fifty-six, so far not too bad. But then when Im fifty, hell be sixty-six. And when Im sixty-fiveoh my god, hell be dead. It didnt matter that it was the kind of relationship you measure in days, not decades; case in point, I once called him only to hang up the second he answered because I only wanted to ascertain that, yes, he had the use of both his phone and his hands and was choosing not to call me. I still could not stop fretting about his impending death.

I met Simon on a camping safari in southern Africa in the fall of 1999, going through Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. He was the only one there from England, I was the only one from Canada. There were others from Germany, the Netherlands, Australia. Two women from the United States, Vicky and Lori, ended up coming to our wedding.

If I try to tell you what we had in common, Im going to sound stupid: We bought matching wooden giraffes; we had the same favorite Springsteen song, Thunder Road; and the same favorite Dickens novel, Great Expectations . And since I share my February 7 birthday with Charles Dickens, that last point seemed eerily significant. If I tell you how we were different, you would be alarmed: He barely talks, I barely stop talking; he never worries, I never stop worrying. When I heard him use his inhaler, even way back then, it sounded to me like a death rattle. Yet my doubts were no match for his certainty.

He claims he knew the first time we met, walking in the Kalahari Desert to look at the sunset, but wisely said nothing until months later, when I went to visit him in England and we decided on a trip to Italy. It started with a sudden kiss as our plane touched down in Rome. A few days later, we were in a caf in Sorrento, giddy with romance, going back and forth with that delighted conversation that goes, I have a question for you, when did you first etc., when he asked, I have a question for you, do you have any idea how much I love you?

I was too flustered to say anything, so I just laughed. But I should have said no, Simon, actually I have no idea. Usually you never find out really, because usually youre never tested; you skate on the surface of an ordinary life, not realizing how lucky you are that the ice is holding you up.

By this point Im trying to decide who the pallbearers should be. If there are usually six pallbearers and three spots are taken with my one brother and Simons two brothers, that only leaves three more. If I choose a representative from groups of friends, say, friends from university, neighbors, and colleagues, would Casey be offended if I picked Paul? I dont want there to be any hard feelings. By now I am getting a bit stressed.

It doesnt help that when my writers group reviews this chapter, Peter says, What about me? He is only partly joking. Im completely dismayed. I cant believe I forgot about Peter. My buddy from book club, my date for plays at the Young Peoples Theatre from before I met Simon. I was the one who officiated at his Toronto Island wedding to Richard just a short while ago, for heavens sake. Im distraught about my oversight. I tell my friend Laura about it. But what about Sigis? is her only response, referring to her husband. I cant believe this.