The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine
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"Me n'
Andy"
(continued)
Barbara J. Bache-Wiig
jorwig@execpc.com
First, they chopped off
a breast to get rid of the cancer. Then they burned her with cobalt
till now she’s got an open sore all down her back that oozes and
hurts and burns all the time. Some of the medicine she takes—it’s
poison, you know—makes her puke and retch. And through all this she
manages somehow. She reads, knits, watches TV, and clings to the
latest lifeline her doctor has thrown her. Some days Andy says she’s
happy, thinking she’s cured, and maybe the next day she’s
miserable because she knows she’s not. She’s really being murdered
by this cancer, sort of by inches—no, by millimeters, and it’s
enough to make you feel like life is shit to see Andy shrivel and his
mother lie dying. She’s been almost dead maybe fifteen times in the
last two years. I mean she’s dying, like almost every breath may be
her last, and every move is agony. Andy’s begun to eat only
hamburgers and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He watches TV day
and night, or listens to his stereo in between doing anything his
mother or dad ask him to do. He buys groceries, takes letters to the
post office, and takes his mother to the lab for blood tests. He dusts
and vacuums all over the place, he does some of the cooking, and he
washes the dishes. I’ve watched him do the stuff—even helped
him—but I can tell his mind isn’t on the job, and if you say
anything to him he answers in one or two words. He seems tied up like
a mummy, or like he’s one of those tops that you wind a string
around and then let go, only with him the string never quite lets go.
It’s as if he figures that it wouldn’t do any good to decide
anything, or try anything because he’ll just be wound up and let go
again and wound up and let go again.
Andy started college when Arrow and I did. His mother was
still well enough so she wasn’t in bed all the time. Andy did OK
too, but he didn’t like college. Here he’s got all this musical
talent and this voice that would make even God notice it, yet the way
he started talking after his mother got sick, you’d think he was
lower than a worm. Plus, I found out that he began expecting anything
he tried would turn out lousy. Have you ever known anybody like that?
No matter how much fun something might be, or how interesting,
they’re sure, they know, that it’s gonna turn out wrong. And then
it usually does. That was Andy. So anyway, with Andy not liking
college and being the youngest kid in his family, he landed the job of
sort of babysitting his mother, you might say.
You’ll probably say, “That’s life for you.” Well,
I’ll say, “That’s death for you,” because on top of all I’ve
told you, Andy’s dad had a heart attack a year ago. It scared Andy,
naturally, and his mom and dad. But his dad was great, just like his
mother. He recovered and has kind of hypnotized himself into not
getting upset about all the work and the bills. He takes everything in
stride—”a minute at a time” he says. Now he goes to work again
every day after getting Andy’s mother settled, and Andy stays at
home like I said and takes care of her. Well, right in the middle of
all this dying, I read one night in the paper that Mr. Groh, our old
band teacher, had died of a sudden stroke. He wiped out at school, but
I heard later that his wife got to the hospital about the same time he
got there in the ambulance. She got to see him, and he saw her. Then,
clunk, he was gone.
There was a memorial service for him at our old school a
couple of days later. Andy and I and the other guys all went to the
service together. The program read, “A Service of Thanksgiving and
Dedication Honoring the Life and Work of Jacob Groh.” There was some
organ music and a prayer, and Mr. Groh’s a cappella choir sang. I
wasn’t thinking about Mr. Groh for a while. I was thinking about a
picture. D’you know that book of photographs called The Family of
Man? D’you remember the picture with the doctor holding up a
newborn baby by the ankles? The baby is all slippery and wet, and the
cord is still connected to the mother. Above the picture it says,
“The universe resounds with the joyful cry I AM!” And that’s
what I was thinking about while the choir sang.
When the choir finished, our principal got up and told
about Mr. Groh’s life. It was a long one—he was 64 when he
died—and packed with playing a lot of instruments in big name bands
and orchestras, then teaching music to a lot of kids, and generally
being fascinated with living and caring whether his students learned.
Hearing about him kept me thinking about the universe resounding with
the cry, “I AM.”
Talk about resounding, after our principal finished
speaking, the kids in this year’s stage band played their hearts out
in a jazz number that made the place vibrate. All of a sudden I’m
thinking, “The universe resounds with the triumphant yell, “I
WAS!” Then while my feet kept the beat of the jazz, tears poured out
of my eyes, and I got this feeling in my gut like I’m gonna laugh
because I can hear Mr. Groh saying, “Joey, you couldn’t play
‘Come to Jesus’ in the key of C.”
Andy and I and the other guys all went to the service
together, like I said. As we walked out, even though I was still
pretty choked up but sort of feeling cheerful too, I said to Andy,
“That was some service for a really great guy, y’know?” Sounding
like he was choking in a thick fog, he said, “It was all right.”
And just like that I’m jerked back to him and his death scene, and I realized how numb and strung out he is. I
remembered one time when Andy told me that he felt strung up and that
even though he figured he might as well kill himself since he’ll die
of cancer or a heart attack anyway, he didn’t have the energy. As we
walked I looked at Andy and he looked as if he’s being drained down
through smaller and smaller funnels, and he’s coming out stringier
every time his mother almost dies but doesn’t.
Then I remembered the memorial service. It was
straight—like our friend Arrow. Even though life had knocked him
dead, Mr. Groh left in a sort of throbbing glory. But, poor Andy, when
his mother finally dies, I guess the universe will only echo with a
muffled sigh, “at last.”
Published: October 11, 2004