11.11.03 - 9:47 a.m.

It's cool today, but not cold. This weekend, the nights were frigid. I could feel the cold seeping in through the walls. I was going to get up early this morning and come in to work so I could go through the house listings before starting work, plan the houses I want to see. That didn't work out so well. I completely overslept, missed the morning bus, and walked to work instead. I had my fuzzy fleece er, poncho/cape thing mom made me for warmth, and this morning it was actually a little too warm, but it might be cooler tonight, tomorrow, so I needed to bring it with me.

Steve was just in my office, ranting about his surgery tomorrow, and how he might die. It's just that easy to get me riled up. I lectured: the power of positive thinking, and whatnot. This is all, mind you, good-natured, but when he started going on about how there's nothing wrong with facing facts and facts are facts and we're all going to die and he thinks - every time he gets in a plane - that it might crash, etc. I was close to losing it. For obvious reasons.

Well, not eally close. It was there, in my mind: a possibility. It might happen. It could happen if I were to let it happen. It would surface through my skin, break like a wave, be over. Except it wasn't necessary: there's nothing wrong with people venting, just as there's nothing wrong with chiseling a smile like stone across your heart: it'll be fine. As long as you mean it.

As long as you mean it, by which I mean don't offer such things as a platitude, thoughtlessly, the way you offer someone a piece of gum, or hold the door open for a stranger as you're rushing into the bank, the grocery store. I can't speak - except to my mother - about any of this without crying, but I can write without crying, so I'm writing, now.

This afternoon, I'm meeting my mother at the salon and we'll have her hair cut, in preparation for chemotherapy. She had the rest of her stitches taken out yesterday, and she doesn't have another appointment about the surgery until December. Dr. Schiano said they would call her and set up an appointment for chemotherapy education. Personally, I'm a bit flummoxed as to why they couldn't schedule that appointment while she was in his office yesterday. I'm not a big fan of we'll call you, particularly since... I don't know, the extra month, how much extra time did her cancer have to spread over that extra month? It just seemed like four weeks was an awfully long time to wait for her surgery, given the state of things.

Well, so: her hair. We're having it cut. I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere and talk about wigs, but she's not interested in doing that right now. Cutting her hair is going to be very, very hard for her. My mother has long, mostly gray hair, thick and straight and absolutely lovely. She wears it up for work, and down the rest of the time, and its her best feature. She has fabulous hair, and if someone knows my mom vaguely or socially, from afar, something like that, it's the hair they'll remember.

When she decided to have it cut before starting chemo, she couldn't even tell other people. I had to tell them for her. "We're planning..." David has today off, so he's going to drive her to town, then I'll go home with them. I figure we can stop and go shopping somewhere on the way home, and I can just spend some time with mom.

So, I think this is going to be a difficult, emotional afternoon, no matter how positive we try to be.

In honor of the whole strange upended world where I've become my mother's keeper, here's one of my favorite AA Milne poems. Apparently, the Kingston Trio recorded it as a children's song, and so the poem is very available on the web, on lyrics sheets. I never heard it that way, and think it hardly needs a melody. Milne had fabulously compelling singsongy rhythms in his children's poems. Here it is:

Disobedience

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
"If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"