Lutoslawski - Dancing on the Precipice, My Fight With Cancer

Dancing onthe precipice

My fight withcancer

by

BolesawLutosawski

PUBLISHEDBY:

BolesawLutosawski on Smashwords

Dancing on theprecipice

My fight withcancer

Copyright 2004by Bolesaw Lutosawski

Translated byEmilia Korczyska 2015

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A porcelain princess

Non-Hodgkinlymphoma dr. Ellis informed me.

Is it cancer? I asked in a trembling voice.

Yes The doctorlooked me straight in the eye, and then added: Well startchemotherapy next Tuesday. Do you have any questions?

I didnt haveany questions. I was too shocked.

Something I hadbeen afraid of had justhappened.

I was sittingthere, paralyzed, with vacuumin my head. The fear has not awaken yet. I felt like someone throwninto a cave and left alone without a torch.

Very slowly, inno particular order, the different thoughts started emerging fromthe dark, a tangled mass of formerly unknown feelings that were nowfilling my heart. Of course I wanted to know what my chances wereand how long I was expected to stay alive, but I was afraid to ask.In addition, the doctors break into talking about statistics andnumbers straight away instead of admitting they simply dont have aclue.

What shall I doin this situation?

You need to takegood care of yourself, go on long walks and believe in your future,while we will do our best to fight this lymphoma.

Is this goingto be enough?

Youre standingon a precipice Ive never been on said dr. Ellis quitehonestly.

Can you removeit?

Indeed.

Thankyou.

I said goodbyeand went home, but I took a longer route, through empty streets, asI was crying and wanted to be all alone.

Three dayslater, on a late Friday afternoon, we went to a Chinese circus. Theboys had been waiting to go there for a week. The circus was set-upjust outside the city centre of Cambridge - on Midsummer Common,next to Jesus Green, where we often went to feed the ducks andswans. I was walking with Max, holding his hand. Roman was runningahead with a balloon we had just bought for him. At the entrance tothe Big Tent, we nervously searched for the tickets. I finallyfound them in my pocket. A beautiful Chinese lady dressed in whitekimono, who looked just like a princess made of porcelain, bowed tous then and led us inside. There, amongst oriental dcor, lanterns,ribbons, the boys spotted their friends from school in the crowdand pulled funny faces at them.

Soon, brightlydressed young men started their performance they were jumpingthrough hoops of fire, climbing each others arms with thenimbleness of a gazelle, forming human pyramids, and jugglinganything that has fallen into their hands. But I was hardlynoticing them; I was too busy watching my own little family. Thefascination with what was happening on the ring and with the magicof the circus I could see in my boys eyes was the greatestexperience I could wish for myself to take part in.

Daddy exclaimed Roman Have you seen what he did?!

And he gave mea fleeting glance full of admiration for the agile acrobat. Ismiled at himeven though my heart was bleeding from the thornsthat were biting into it; I was wandering how long I would still bethere with themwhen will they lose me? Will they manage withoutme?

I hadabsolutely no illusions as to the fact that I would die. I wastotally convinced that the word cancer equals death round thecorner.

After the breakthe ring turned into a stage where the entertainers performedvigorous acts, telling us mystical histories of the ancient Chinathrough their dance moves. The warriors, suspended on their steelropes, were swinging across the tent, fighting with swords andburning torches, while smart ladies in masks, clad in brightlycoloured dresses played on small drums and pipes. To be honest, Ihad no idea what this story was about; boys wereenthralled.

Suddenly, thelights went out and the warriors froze in strange poses, smokeburst from both sides and the familiar porcelain princess run intothe stage from behind the green curtains, only that this time shewas wearing a tight pink suit and her head was adorned with a smallhat.

We waitedanxiously to see what was going to happen next, following each ofher moves as she, walking in small steps, approached the hugesilver ball that the acrobats pushed into the middle and put inmotion. A moment later, one of the warriors hovered over the stage,scooping the little princess on his way, to put her on top of thespinning ball.

Shes not goingto fall off, is she? Asked Roman, looking for my reassurance,that everything would be fine.

Everything willbe fine I said soothingly.

What happenednext exceeded all of our expectations. While the princess managedto keep on top of the ball spinning under her feel with great skilland grace, two girls, who were juggling empty rice bowls, threwthem to her one by one and she was catching themmid-air.

She has three ineach hand now Max informed me in a whisper, without taking hiseyes off the stage.

Maybe thats allshe can handle? Mused Roman.

But theprincess motioned with her hand that she wants more, albeit thistime they were throwing the bowls onto the tiny hat on top of herhead.

One, two, three,fourthe children counted the bowls out loud, and then bang! the fifth one fell down. The princess demanded another one, whichalso fellso they threw her another one and this time it was asuccess.

The childrenlet out a sigh of relief. It was so, because children like happyendings, because they live with optimism, because they rarely givein

We adults -are different. We adults - believe in failure, since we know alot of things in life do not come about as requested, as we areused to loss, disaster, and hopeless situations without a way out.We accept pessimism and it makes us weaker. We give up easily,losing faith in our fate and ourselves.

And I, as anadult, saw my future, as a catastrophe, whose finale has alreadybeen arranged, has practically become my reality already. I wasmournful about my fate, but without objections. Cancer was winningalready.

After thiswonderful night with my family, carefree and full of fun, we madeour way back home. I kneeled to do the lace in one of my shoes, andthe boys continued walking ahead of me. They looked so innocent andI realised how much I didnt want to leave them.

So I wontleave them I decided and felt that my guardian angel will addand who asked you to leave them?

Thats how Istarted my gruelling fight with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, only that nowI wasnt a victim thrown as an offering to that illnessanymore.

Toast withGod

I couldnt sleep,even though I was tired. I wasclosing my eyes and a minute later I was looking at the starsagain, on the trees in my garden rustling in the wind, whichstarted blowing that night again, and at the wall with a portraitof Marcel Proust hanging there.

The samethought kept coming to my mind all the time as if someone wanted toput me to sleep with repeating the thought itself: what will youleave behind? What will you leave behind? What? What

I was tellingmyself quietly that I will leave behind wonderful things, as if itmade any difference, and I looked at the stars again which winkedat me beguilinglyonly that I wasnt in a hurry to join them. So Iturned my back to the window and looked at Marcel Proustagain.

Maybe I shouldwrite a book? I thought About everything that is happeningnow, however undeserved!