The Specific Abstract

I walked home alone from a halloween rager at 3am all bundled in black and now I sit on my couch with a best friend sleeping under my covers. Cancer. There, I said it. Tonight I finally allow the word to roll off my mind's tongue over and over again because I've avoided it for too long. Cancer cancer cancer cancer cancer. I might as well start saying it because I can't stop hearing it at school, work, in films, and in books. Cancer is a stalker I can't get a restraining order on. Cancer is a feeling I can't shake. Cancer is a shadow looming that I'll never quite understand because I don't have it.

My dad got prostate cancer when the leaves began to fall in 09'. Before he 'got' cancer his mom died from being old. She went quietly and quickly. She never stopped smiling and she tended this ginormous garden days before her heart attack. She kicked her bucket over at 94. My Opa on my moms' side died a few months after my grandma. It was sad but only because he didn't go so easily. I only knew Opa after most of his stomach was removed because of stomach cancer. I always knew him as the guy that was sitting in his dark grey puffy chair in the living room scoffing at politics on the six o'clock news or staring blankly at tiger woods or catholic mass on TV. It was odd to hear my Oma say that I looked like him when he was young and that we had similar mannerisms when all I saw was skin and bones. I twist and pull my own hair out of habit exactly like he did. Even though he made an effort his grumpy self showed through when certain sports broadcasters came on screen. My Oma had to force him to eat because when they cut him open to remove the cancer they removed parts of his stomach along with his appetite. Every hour the clock chimed and my Oma would bring him little bits of food on crackled glass plates.

3 years ago in the height of summer I was tucked away in a music festival tent bundled up in all the clothes my backpack could hold. It always gets so cold when you aren't fucked up or are coming down off of a fuck up during the stupid hours of the night even when the days are so humid it feels like you're swimming. I was trying to sleep but kept worrying that my flip phones battery would die before sunrise and I was worrying about missing out on some great drum circle adventure. The next morning I was attending my second cousin's funeral and didn't really want to be late for it covered in dirt. Some sort of cancer made her drop like a fly. They told her she had a few months to live and then she made it another year and tried some expensive "natural" treatment facility in Cali that sucked her family dry of the resources she provided. I was never really fond of that side of the family. That sounds mean spirited, I found it difficult making personal connections with religious zealots.

When Dad got diagnosed, they put him in line for surgery, took his prostate out, and they said he was cancer free. It seemed quick and easy except no-one really told any of us how depressing it can be to heal. It always seems easier hiking back down a mountain when in reality you have to direct what little energy you have left on making your exhausted legs keep yourself on the path and alive and not falling down the mountain. Square one can look a lot like a dead end rather than a beginning. They forgot to mention to my dad how emasculating losing the ability to get an erection is or being unable to control when you piss. My dad told me how hard it was but not until months later when he was getting closer to feeling like his happy-go-lucky-hard-working-self and the clouds of depression drifted away.

When he was feeling better his PSA levels went up. I was pissed. Why did I assume everything was alright? Everything can never be ALL right. I'm holding onto some shred of religious teachings from my childhood sunday school class. "Is there really a heaven with streets of gold and all my best friends Ms. Gunther??" "You betchya Remy". This time surgery wasn't an option and it was radiation and hormone therapy. Okay dad, you can do this. This is just another hurdle. And then there were side effects.

I was more worried than I was before. This cancer was a little more abstract. A little less specific. At the time I was dating some film industry big shot or at least that's the way he acted. This is Winterpeg not Hollywood and last I checked his name isn't Guy Madin so I'm not sure who was stroking his ego. He played ukulele real good and painted really badly and I decided that I felt comfortable enough with him to share my worries. So I called him on a friday evening before I was heading to work the graveyard shift and spilled the beans. He said he was sorry and then he messaged me after we hung up and said he never wanted to see me again.

I waited three years to get into an accelerated school program. I had promised myself I would go traveling if I got accepted into school and followed suit. I didn't take my security blanket brother this time, I went alone. I didn't care where I went I just wanted to go. There was a ticket under a thousand to Shanghai so I started there. I was adventurous but still careful. I only got diarrhea once and not even after I ate raw meat on a beach. Three months of being alone and I kept thinking that something would go wrong. Whenever something pushed me out of my tiny comfort zone or when I didn't feel safe a voice in the back of my head said: You've been through worse. It took a handful of times for this calm voice of reason to speak up before I began to understand it. The harder times my subconscious wanted me to remember was growing up queer in a mennonite community. Coming out to my parents before I even knew what closets were. Being forced to see a deprogramming counsellor in a building with a storefront that said “west broadway consulting”. Coming out a second time when the pastor at my sister's church voiced homophobia and hate. Loving somebody who's body is an unpredictable time bomb. Yeah, I've been through worse.

When I came home I was excited to see my new boyfriend who had pushed me to follow my plans of traveling. Who loved me thousands of miles away. I remember telling him that I would set up camp in his room and spend the whole week with him when I got back. I would ignore phone calls from work and would enjoy his company. On the second evening after I was home right before I was about to go to sleep he said my name. Instantly when I hear my name I know its a prelude to a really good or really bad string of words. Like a last minute "i love you".

Instead, it was a: “I have to tell you something”. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and I held my breath. We agreed that we weren't going to sleep with other people but I was prepared to hear that he did. "Uhm, I felt a lump and..." and that's when I got up said “no this isn't happening” and beelined to the bathroom. He followed and held my hand and brought me back to bed. "Its aggressive but that's a good thing cause chemo works well on aggressive cancers so its very treatable".

Sometimes I wish I had cancer so that I could understand it better. But that's not the point. Its something that can't be understood. I'm just chasing my own american dream even if it doesn't have white picket fences or a mansion on wellington crescent. I'm chasing a dream where the people I love don't have bad things happen to them and its wearing me down trying to wish all the bad away. Instead, the american dream I bought into, I won't find anywhere else but inside a leonard cohen poem. My dad grew softer and more comfortable expressing his feelings. My boyfriend realized how much appearance doesn't matter...and yet how it is everything at the same time especially when it doesn't match who you are on the inside. He also learned about privilege, how to draw on eyebrows, and a little something about endurance. As much as cancer and I have a hateful, confusing, scary, messy, and distrustful relationship nobody told me about the good things that could come from it either.