As you may recall, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer just after I went through my embryo transfer for IVF. And, as I started this process again, and tried to articulate the particular strands of trepidation I was feeling, the thing I was not telling people was that I was wondering whether someone would die every time I did IVF. To be clear, even though I am an only child, I don't really believe that everything in the world revolves around me. But I know about the circle of life, both from the Lion King and from that movie where death takes a holiday, and I know that usually, someone, somewhere is leaving this mortal plane when someone else is arriving via birth. Really, God, I get it. It does not have to be illustrated for me with such a direct connection as it was in the spring.
But apparently God, or the Powers that Be, or the Great Narrative Arc of my life feels otherwise.
Because I started my Lupron shots on Friday night, and today I have learned that another loved one is dying of cancer in the very near future.
Last Thanksgiving, while my parents were visiting us in California, we found out that a close friend of theirs, Virginia, was diagnosed with lymphoma. She had started treatment, but, with a variety of pre-existing conditions (including congestive heart failure), no one thought she had long to live. When I started IVF and my father was diagnosed, my mother and I were really not able to call or help or even really think about Virginia's condition. Luckily, she has a nephew who really stepped in. While my father was on life support and in his final days, the nephew moved Virginia to an assisted living facility near his house.
Now, Virginia has not had an easy life. Her first husband was a fighter pilot, and was MIA in Vietnam. She remarried a squadron-mate of his, and they had a son. When their son was 8, he was killed by a drunk driver on the sidewalk in front of their house. We met them a few years after this, and Virginia and her husband Bob took an instant liking to me. They took trips with us, to Hawaii, and the Caribbean and France. They wrote cards and called and spent holiday after holiday with us. And then, in 1991, when I was caught up in the whirlwind of college, Bob died of cancer. Virginia was alone. She did not have any siblings. She had lost both of her parents. Really, her nephew was her only relative. And we were the next closest thing.
A week after my father's funeral, I drove my mother down to see her. We had a terrible dinner in her assisted living facility, but she was happy to see us. She complained about her room; she complained about the food; she complained about how old and boring and lifeless her new house-mates were. Honestly, she didn't even seem sick anymore. She sent us out to buy some bottle of wine and some Doritos. And then my mother and I drove back up to my mother's house to continue the strangely sad and technical work of executing my father's estate, writing a new will for my mother, and preparing for the other major life transitions I was about to go through (including a surgery and a move to a different state.)
And now, just as I've started the long Lupron protocol for IVF, Virginia has moved to a hospice. There is a tumor in her spine and possibly one in her brain. She told her nephew that she is not afraid of dying, she is only afraid of dying alone. And he has promised her that he will be there for her.
And I will continue my protocol. I will not make plans to fly across country to see her, because, as my Reproductive Endocrinologist reminded me, I am not as young as I was six months ago.
And if Virginia does die alone, I will always feel I have failed her.
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