A call to Snowbirds:

To the lucky New Englanders who head to warm climates for vacation or a respite from thigh-high snow — if you have my cell number and you happen to be near the ocean — please consider sending me a video. It’d be so appreciated.

I stopped thinking about them and started thinking about me — what all this means to me — and then I admitted that I haven’t been brave enough to go deep into what that means – beyond the whole physical part – because waiting at the abyss is effing scary – and that fear has kept me from going anywhere near the edge.

So like a crazy person, I started angry-talking — raging at the universe. I’m not sure what my first ramble was about, other than to say there was A LOT of swearing.

My medical team showed commitment to my physical health, but they also focused on my mental health. They realized the importance of my writing. They knew that my blog is helping me in many ways and that it is a fundamental part of how I will maintain a good quality of life – for as long as I am blessed to have one.

“It’s like Hadley is stockpiling hugs.” Over Christmas break, she began coming in and extending her hand. The first time she did it I gave it a good old-fashioned handshake.

    “Nope. It’s a lever, push it down.”

    I did as I was told.

    She did a little twirl of her head and said, “Jackpot! Pick a number.”

    I chose thirty.

    She commenced a thirty hug session. If time allows, she comes in and extends her hand, and I choose a number – a really high number because I need to stockpile the hugs, too.

After her assurances that she’d be with me the whole way, I agreed to the test, so Maria pumped some radioactive agent into my veins, sent me off to wait three hours, told me to take my Xanax pill thirty-minutes before my return and reassured me we’d be fine.

“Of course she’ll be fine,” I hissed at Tim during the plutonium surge throughout my body, “she’s not the one getting into the effing machine.”

Mr. Wonderful squeezed my hand, suggested we spend some time outside then grab something to eat from the hospital cafeteria.

I rolled my eyes at the dude, “Is this your idea of a date, cause if it is, it sucks.”

“It’s not all bad. I’m holding your hand and you’re radioactive. That’s commitment. And I’ll let you get the most expensive thing on the cafeteria menu.”

I immediately searched the web to see what date I was aiming for, “March 31st? What the eff? Hey, Tim, I thought MLB Opening Day was always in April. It’s March 31st this year.”

He poked his head into the living room, “It’s only one day earlier.”

“Only one day? Only one day? What if it was the only day you had left?”

Silence. And then a quiet mumble on his way back to the kitchen, “This might be the only day I have left.”

“I heard that.”

Silence. Then my rant. “Is it too much to ask that Opening Day be in April – like it’s always been? Really, is that too much to ask?” 

He appeared back in the doorway and moved toward me.

I shook my head, “I’m doing math.”

He turned and left, “Oh, Jesus, help me.”

She had a great laugh, the kind that caused a few laugh-lines at the corners of her eyes. Those were the only lines on that woman’s face. Debbie Gagnon is one of those women — the really pretty kind who needs no makeup and looks dressed up in a pair of chinos and a button-down blouse.

Marjorie, my kid sister, the one with golden, wavy hair and sapphire blue eyes to die for, would enter the room, step to her bed, fold down her quilt, then her blanket, then her sheets and do an inspection for the dreaded spiders she thought might have found their way into her place of slumber.

When you think about it — or when I think about it — I figure baby Jesus was the first to suffer the fate of combo-gift givers. Take the Three Wise Men for instance. They each brought a lovely birthday gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but would it have killed them to stop at a little boutique on their way from the mountain, part with a few gold shillings, and pick up a lovely blanket of blue for the Christmas babe asleep on the hay — or maybe get a little something, something for Mary, like a heating pad for her back and maybe a few OTCs for pain relief? I’m sure she would have appreciated the gesture after the donkey riding and child birthing thing. But, alas, the Three Wise Men came without notice and bearing one gift each.

I venture to guess if it were Three Wise Women bearing gifts, they would have put the gold, frankincense and myrrh into a gift bag, and made a plan.

“We should call before visiting the manger.”

“And we should bring a Christmas gift. Maybe a basket full of diapers, bibs, and teething rings.”

“And we should bring a tree ornament engraved with Jesus’ name and birthdate as his birthday gift.”

Yeup. Three Wise Women would have figured that if ever there was a kid deserving more than a combo-gift, it was our Lord and Savior.

I didn’t feel like writing so I spent some time watching the Hallmark channel – and by watching I mean to say that I stared at the screen and let my eyes glaze over. My television set is permanently tuned into the feel-good channel because I just don’t have the mental capacity to handle upsetting shows like Sesame Street, anymore.

Those who know me know I’m a fighter. I show up for battle, any kind of battle, certainly medical battles. I’ve had my skull opened for a daylong brain surgery, and then reopened to stem brain fluid leakage, I’ve done the step by step of breast cancer, and did a few other surgeries here and there because there was a reason and/or a chance. This time, the only thing I could do was admit defeat, and that was symbolically done by my signing forms that removed any question of whether or not anyone should try to help me live. This process was hard. And when it was done, it was time for a Xanax — thank God.

God has been answering my prayer. I used to think He has way more important things in His day to day than to be micromanaging the comings and goings of Sheryll O’Brien – but I’ve changed my tune a bit. In fact, I think God has been in lock step with me this entire time.

“This is gonna suck, but I love you.”

Hannah, Jessica and Hadley came for dinner later that day and after we’d eaten, we played a Christmas game we enjoy. We put A-Z letters into a brown paper bag and take turns drawing a letter. Then we set about naming some Christmas-related thing that corresponds with that letter. (BTW, if you ever play and get the letter U, use the word unwrap).

Anyway, after the second game, I sat my sweet, loving granddaughter down and told her the news. The hopeful look on her face that she might have misheard, the tears that filled her eyes and ran like rain when she realized she hadn’t, and the hug that lasted an eternity — broke my heart.

We’ve all heard about the phenomenon of a person’s life passing before them as they leave this earth. I haven’t gotten that far yet, and I can’t say for certain if and how it all goes down, but I’ve imagined it this way:

    The end is nearing. I’m reclining in a chair or a bed and a big-ass screen lowers from above – orchestrated music begins in surround-sound, and the face of God fills the screen — much like the MGM lion, or the Paramount mountain, or the globe of Universal Studios does at the beginning of the movies we’ve all watched over the years.

Dear Sheryll,

You are cordially invited Home at a date to be disclosed. Use this gift of time wisely. Get your things in order and enjoy the pint of Truffle Kerfuffle in the freezer. BTW, no R.S.V.P. required, and please arrive on your best behavior and with your mouth shut!

Love,

God

“When? How long? When? … When? How long? When …” she sobbed.

I raised a quizzical brow and pushed all-the-way-in. “I thought you didn’t want to know about death dates.”

“I don’t want to know MY death date, but yours…” She caught herself mid-sentence, turned all guilty-faced, and then fell into the fit of laughter her mother, father, and sister had already begun.

RECAP: consult + body scan + 10 radiation trips + biweekly labs = 14 appointments before Christmas — the season I really want and need to enjoy.

In retrospect, I can honestly say the only thing that set the cleric apart from any other dude I’ve invited into my home was the black and white collar he wore. This priest is as easy a conversationalist as I am, but he is w.a.y. better at listening — part of his training, I suppose. He was open to discussing the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and more importantly, the Christianity that binds the two.

He skillfully guided me around a tiny complaint I expressed in the God department. “The only thing I have prayed for since the beginning of this ordeal, is that God won’t give me more than I can handle. Sometimes, I think He might be missing my prayer,” I said in a near-whisper.

A few weeks before my doctor got my funky blood results that started him down the path of finding out what ‘might be’ going on inside me, my daughter, Jessica, and I were hanging out, just shooting the breeze. Out of the blue I asked, “Would you want to know the date and time you were going to die?” She blurted an emphatic, “Absolutely not.” She asked me the same question, I blurted an emphatic, “Absolutely yes.” We debated the pros and cons of our choices — each of us making a salient point here and there, but neither of us denting the other’s strongly-held positions. Jessica’s be-all-and-end-all was that knowing the date and time would be like having a death sentence hanging over her head. My position was that death is the only certainty about life, so why not know when it’s coming?