Suck on that alliteration, Skee-lays!
For those of you who don’t know me, I am Karen or Sis or a Shaak, whatevs. I also had the initial inclination to blow off the invitation to contribute to this awesome blog. This is the journey of the Skee-lays. Love of Jess’ life. My brown friend. Todd’s bourbon buddy. Steve’s man-crush. My brother from another mother. Charlie’s host body. This is not my story. I am a peripheral, supporter of both Kevin and Jess, but on the sidelines. And I’ll let Kevin determine if I warrant any space in this blog to speak of how we met and became family.
But as I dropped my middle child off at college today (Freshman year, bitches!) and visited Chiapparelli’s in Baltimore’s Little Italy, so many feels and senses hit me about my own journey that I took them as signs.
You assume that I speak of the feels of leaving my middle baby in the place he’ll call home for the next four years. The empty room next to mine in our house. The knowledge that we have one more to go and we’re empty nesters. Fuck that noise – people say that like it’s a bad thing! It’s time for these kids to go make their way in the world and have their journeys! And stop sucking the money from my bank account…but I digress.
No, these feels are so different than that. I actually speak of the time a little over four years ago when I dedicated two months of my life attempting against all odds and hope to keep my mother alive and comfortable because of the horrific and out-of-the-blue brain cancer diagnosis. Because my mother toured the Baltimore hospitals – St. Joe’s for initial testing, Sinai for a biopsy, Hopkins for surgery, and Kernan for a rehab to get her “chemo and radiation ready,” a state of being which was never to be achieved.
Chiapparelli’s was my mother’s favorite restaurant in Little Italy. We drove past both Sinai and Hopkins today. We were able to spend time with my mom’s friend and waitress at Chip’s, Ida (my siblings and I have since been calling her “Aunt Ida”).
Hence, the feels. Make sense?
So, I thought it might be cool to add some perspective – and this is more for Sam (when it’s time, and when you’re ready).
I know approximately what Kevin is going through. No, I can’t speak to his headaches, the tingling hands, the light sensitivity, the constant questioning if that time that he lost his balance yesterday is because Charlie is initiating Chevy Chase-like pratfalls in Kevin’s own slapstick life comedy or because he just tripped over his own flip-flops.
But the uncertainty, the fear, the sharp-edged, concrete certainty that this is NOT FUCKING FAIR? All of that. All of it. I know it all. There is not a single thing that he or Jess can feel or think that I didn’t feel or think. Tears? Anger? Depression? Sadness? Hope? Inappropriate laughter? Despair? Rage? Happiness? All. Of. It. And Sam? (Because you will read this at some point). I have been you, my friend. Lean on me for that. Seriously. I have broad shoulders.
I learned some things from my mother’s fight. I learned that there are varying degrees of worse things than hearing “it is a grade IV glioblastoma.” Similar to the rings of hell. Things like, when your mom has lost mobility, you can wear a belt around the two of you to lift her from a wheelchair to a bed. Things like, when she can’t get out of the bed and her insurance will only cover a limited amount of hospice care, you can actually change your mother’s diaper the way she changed yours as a baby. Things like, you can move on when your mom is gone, no matter how impossible it is for you to even let go of her hand after she’s passed.
The main thing I learned is, this life, this journey – it isn’t over until it is over. Some of us get way less time than others. That’s life. Those are the breaks, so they say. I don’t know who they are, but they say a lot of shit. But you get out of that time what you put into that time. That premise is what makes this blog such a great effort – we can all read it to Norm after Kevin’s successful surgery. There are some big words in here, and Norm needs help.
I call Charlie the “pussy tumour.” Because it’s clearly a British tumour (see the –our ending instead of just the –or). And because it is most likely benign and is fucking with him, rather than being an evil, insidious, toxic fuck that is taking over his brain like the Nothing in The Neverending Story.
Anywho, Kevin laughs when I call it the pussy tumour. This is great, because his laugh is great. But also because I mean it. Sam, this is important: Until some doctor looks me dead in the eye and says, “Your brown friend is no match for this Charlie, and we’ll do our best but the outcome doesn’t look good,” then Kevin is merely having the equivalent of a root canal. Well, like if the root was shaped like a ping-pong ball and lodged in his brain. Or the equivalent of the mouse helping the lion to remove the embedded thorn in his paw. Well, like if the thorn was shaped like a ping-pong ball and lodged in the lion’s brain. Get what I’m saying? The de-bulking of the offending tissue. The ping-pong sized brain-suck that is probably causing his disdain for gravy, cooked fruit (who the fuck doesn’t eat apple pie, you un-American wheezing bag of dick tips? – Deadpool reference; had to), most vegetables, and most white people.
He should definitely still use Ye Olde Tumour to gain favour with the homosexual flight attendants and nurse practitioners to his heart’s content. Because fucking with white folks is fun.
But let me be clear – Kevin is going to be fine. Well, as fine as he is now. Which is like, average at best. Norm would agree.
You know how people talk about the power of positivity? They are usually tree-hugging, granola eating, patchouli-smelling hippie folks who shit rainbows. Or hot yoga-doing, skinny bitches who had 2-hour long labors with their kids’ births and have nary a stretch mark to show for it.
But it’s real. It is so real. I am in a unique position to NOT be negative. Because I know what the worst things are. And we aren’t anywhere near that. It is natural for Kevin to start a blog like this. And to touch as many people as he can, just in case. But I fully intend for Jess and a Charlie-free Kevin to be at family dinner on Sunday, October 16th eating mashed potatoes and gravy with peach cobbler for dessert. Famiglia.
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