Off Their Rockers

Susan pestering me about driving directions, she’s looking more and more disheveled, bundled up in old lady’s swaddling. We leave Smith at school, drive around looking for a flu shot, end up in the pharmacy of a Safeway supermarket, test our blood pressure/heart rate with a machine in the waiting area. My pulse is 59, very low for normal activity, another sign of trouble in the operating system. I’m peeing about 10 times a day, up from the usual five or six, thinking I better fast-track the urology visit on our return to Miami.

We drive around in the Seattle drizzle, looking for latte. Susan says, “I haven’t told you my plans”.

“Plans for Halloween?”

“No, what to do with me when I’m gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead. I want my ashes divided into tiny piles, and put in vials to give all my friends, so they can have a

little chunk of me to remember.”

I try to block the image. “Do you want a memorial service?”

“A party. Just a party. Everybody having fun”.

“Where?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Now she’s back to the ashes. “The bits of me have to be scooped into the vials, and then sent to the people. You won’t want to do that, will you.”

“Uh, no, no way I can do that”.

“I’ll call Sascha and see if she’ll do it”.

Back at the hotel, she gets an oh-no message from her old friend Margie in London, the cancer has spread again, another round of chemo, after her multiple surgeries and prior chemos, all of which she’s taken matter-of-factly, a bloody nuisance. A new spot below the right breast, after she’s already had the left one taken out, several years of hospital stays and chemo, no complains, self-pity, playing golf, going to the theater, art shows, when she can. Now she’s cancelled her December trip to Miami, but we weren’t going to be there anyway, so it’s better now because she’ll come later, in March or April, when Susan will be in Miami. So she’s turned this horrible news into good news, of a sort.

Leaves us both with a sad, sick feeling. Susan’s interrupts this train of thought.  ”We’re leaving here in a half hour, you should bring your bathing suit.” 

“Bathing suit?” I stall for time, wondering whether I’ve missed a gym visit in our schedule.

“You’re absolutely right,” she says, taking my question as a critique, “the swimming pool is here in the hotel. We’re picking up Smith, coming back, so you need to leave your bathing suit here”.

“Yes,” I say. It’s already here.