Charmed

Sixty three. That’s how old I am today.

A year ago, I wasn’t sure the shape I’d be in when I got here. I look at a picture of myself holding my newborn granddaughter, Audie, and though I’m not as bald as I would become, I’m getting there. And there is weariness in my eyes. That 62-year-old’s eyes, well, you can barely see them — eyelashes gone, the light of them, even in the presence of dear Audie, shows hardly a twinkle.

Maybe it’s because I’d spent much of that day crying. My sister and sister-in-law had sent me a gift, and when I opened it, I found what feels now like a hundred charms threaded on a silver chain, charms sent to them from friends and family from all points in my life. Well, if you’ve read much that I’ve written, you know that I’m all about charms. I have two full charm bracelets and now the necklace, and when I first pulled it out of the box I was fairly certain my sister was thinking I was dying. And she wanted me to know how much people around me cared about me.

Certainly there were days in those first few months of treatment that I thought I might. And some of the tears easily fell from remembering those dark days. But I laughed, too, through that puddle, knowing maybe even then that this thing would not kill me. At least not yet.

The necklace weighs several heavy ounces. It’s filled with pieces of my life, like charms of buttered toast and an Outlander book, a hot pink dress and a yellow submarine, typewriters and clouds, a crown and a tea cup, a pencil (and its sharpener, dogs and the Empire State Building, sand dollars and a hamburger, an artichoke and a bird, Bible, crown and peony — (just to name a few) and every single one of them comes with a story all its own.

I wore that necklace every single time I had chemo until it was over, except it wasn’t. On those days last summer and fall, I felt as if I was taking with me a full scale of armor to fight this thing — with the help of all those who had charmed me. And in the hours when I sat in the chair, I fingered each gift, remembering the people and the stories.

Two pieces of buttered toast. Malone and I sat at her kitchen table as pre-teens and teens, eating buttered toast after school and talking about boys. (Today Malone is home after almost a week in the hospital fighting COVID-19. She’ll be fine, but her challenge, this time, has been more than a couple of pieces of toast can cure.) Yellow submarine. My brother — Beatlemainiac that he is — sat close to the stage at last year’s Paul McCartney concert in Raleigh on his own birthday.) Clouds. My niece, whose 2-year-old question: Do Clouds Sleep? still has me pondering. Peony: my mother. It’s the only thing she ever gave me that I seem to be able to grow.

The crown looks like the one that sat on Queen Elizabeth’s head during her coronation, the charm’s original owner the mother of my dear ABSU, who bought it when the two of us saw the crown jewels as seniors in high school. The dog from my college suite mate turned neighbor, Grace, as a reminder of all the dogs we’ve walked together and loved in almost 30 years of neighboring. The cardinal: my sister’s reminder that our father is never far away.

I could, as they say, go on.

There would be no writing about it last year. Most days when I looked at the necklace I cried just thinking about all the people represented in it. I cried for the reason behind the necklace and for the fact of it. I cried because the sheer weight of it felt a lot like the weight I was carrying.

I’m embarrassed now to say that when I learned I’d have to continue treatments for another year, I put the necklace away. I can’t say why, really, but anger at the state of things likely had something to do with it.

Today I’m feeling better. I have hair again, though it looks as though it belongs to someone else — the salt and pepper and curls in no way resembling the (mostly) straight blonde sprigs I had last year. And no, my hairdresser wasn’t hiding my gray all this time! (My sister can’t get over the color when we FaceTime. Nobody in our family ever had this color, she says.)

This morning I pulled the necklace out again, fingering the silver jewels for the story each one tells. And I put it on. And took a selfie. Because that’s what you do when you are 63 years old and can’t visit with your mother on your birthday but want to show her how much you’ve changed. (She’s 92 and COVID confined at home, at least away from me right now.)

Anyway, looking at this new woman I saw something I hadn’t seen in so many months — something I thought cancer had taken from me forever.

Light. Sparkle. Twinkle. Blue. And yet, there it is. I hardly recognized myself.

(Well, today, I actually went into a store to pick up my lunch and noticed the mother of one of my son’s high school friends. Masked (she was as well) I spoke to her, but I don’t think she recognized me either!)

Tonight I (tried) to hold Audie, her squirrelly self no longer satisfied to sit in my arms. And it was grand. We are both so big now.

Tomorrow, very early, I’ll be back in the chemo chair for what will begin, once and for ALL, the countdown til I’m finally done — mid-November. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. And done.

I’ll be wearing the necklace again, armed, and charmed, to begin what promises to be my next good year.