Still Me By Rashmi

One of the things I remember most clearly about my first diagnosis isn’t the phone call.
Or the biopsy.
Or even hearing the word “malignant.”
It’s Christmas.

We had sent the biopsy sample away, and like most people waiting for results, we were trying not to imagine the worst.
My husband quietly gave the laboratory his phone number and email address.
I didn’t think much of it.

On Christmas Day, our house was full of family and a few friends.
I remember saying quite confidently,
“It can’t be cancer. Nobody in my family has had it.”

My husband smiled.
My son smiled.
Neither of them said a word.

The party went on.
We laughed.
We ate.
We celebrated Christmas.

What I didn’t know was that the biopsy report had already arrived the day before.
It was malignant.
They both knew.
I didn’t.

They made a decision together.
They would tell me tomorrow.
Not today.

They gave me one last Christmas before my life changed.
The next morning, as always, I was up at five.
My body clock sends me to the loo at the same time every morning.

When I came out of the bathroom, my husband and my son were sitting on the bed waiting for me.
Neither of them had slept all night. That was pretty obvious

The moment I saw their faces; my first question wasn’t about me.

It was,

“Is my sister okay?”

She lives in the US and was the only immediate member of the family who wasn’t with us.

In that instant, my mind went straight to her.

Perhaps I simply couldn’t imagine they were waiting there because of me.

Or perhaps I just wasn’t ready to.

My husband looked at me quietly.

Then he told me.

The biopsy showed malignancy

Looking back now, I realise they carried that knowledge alone for almost twenty-four hours.

They smiled through Christmas dinner
They made conversation. No one else knew
They protected my happiness.
Not because they wanted to hide the truth.

But because they wanted to give me one last ordinary day.
Cancer has taught me many things.
One of them is this:

Love doesn’t always look like grand gestures.
Sometimes…
it looks like two people carrying unbearable news…
…so that, for just one more day,
you don’t have to.