I’m Okay.
Anais Nin said, “We write to taste life twice: in the moment, and in retrospect.” Sometimes, though, I write not in response to nostalgia, but in an attempt to process certain events or emotions that I would really rather not experience twice.
I wrote this piece in the midst of my husband’s chemo treatments and blood tests, after a nearly fatal complication, as I tried to gain insight into the way his illness both broadened and focused my perspective on life.
Cancer affects so much more than the physical.
I’m sharing these words with you from the other end of a path I had not been prepared to travel, in honor of six subsequent years of normal blood tests. It’s dedicated to anyone who has or is taking that journey now, and all those who walk beside them…
“I’m Okay…”
I recognize it now, that slight hesitation between the question, “How are you?” and their vague answer: “I’m okay.” I recognize it, because it’s present in my greetings now.
In the millisecond after I’ve been asked, I consider a list of possible responses to that most innocent and possibly insincere question that follows “Hello.” I could say that we are slowly getting used to the changes cancer has wrought. That the word leukemia is now a common household term, and his last chemo treatment went smoothly, with only the most minimal of reactions. I could say that the nightmares come less frequently, and that we are not earning frequent flier miles at the emergency room anymore. Or I could recite his most recent numbers from the weekly blood tests, and that he no longer flinches when I accidentally touch the port implanted under the skin near his clavicle. That the tightness in my own chest has lessened, and the tears don’t fall quite as often.
Instead, I merely say that we’re okay. Sometimes people smile and nod in return and say, “Glad to hear it,” but sometimes they say nothing, because they didn’t pause long enough in the aisle at the grocery store to listen for the answer. Maybe they are secretly afraid I’ll choose that moment for honesty and pick something from the list they would rather not know.
We part, and I am still alone.
I first became aware of the pause that often precedes “I’m okay,” when a friend of mine went through a sudden and heartrending divorce. I knew she had trouble sleeping at night, she doubted her desirability, her children were reeling, and she’d lost her job as well as her husband because they owned their own company, and it, too, was disbanded. But when people asked her how she was, she’d square her shoulders and lie. “I’m okay.”
Perhaps it wasn’t a lie, altogether.
Perhaps, instead, it was a reassurance to herself that underneath all the upheaval, one part of her self was still intact. One unbroken trace holding the strength and hope she needed to go on.
The space between the question and the answer was the time it took for her to delve into the depths of her spirit for that nugget she hoped was still hidden there. Eyes looking beyond me, chin rising as though taking a dare, she would speak, and it would be true. “I’m okay.”
Some days my hesitation is less, sometimes more. Some days I grasp hope so tightly in my sweaty fist that I know the answer immediately. “I’m okay” comes faster. Other days, I have to survey the list, gauging whether what I hold is equal to the level of threat. On the worst days, I cannot find the treasure at all and have to trust in faith that it is still there.
Now, though, I recognize the moment in others’ answers, that unspoken glimpse of uncertainty. I realize there is no word I can speak solid enough to substitute for what they will find within themselves. As valuable as it is for me, that to which I cling is not something I can pass on to them.
Is it enough that I hear the space? How can I tell them that I understand all they are not saying?
