*
*
Pam
It’s a bright sunny day. The breeze is crisp—an indication that winter’s passed and spring is just arriving. The sun is high and not one cloud in seen in the expansion of the Philadelphia blue sky. The whole drive down I kept thinking of the events of the previous year; of what Jim, Cece, and I went through that brought us here today.
The months between when we found out about Jim’s tumor to the moment we heard the doctor say, ‘Jim, you’re free,’ has a dreamlike quality in my head. Giving birth is my only concrete memory, but then again, I have a usually smiling, blond haired little girl, with her father’s grin to show for it. The rest—doctor’s visits, radiation treatments, surgeries, hospital—it all feels like a bad dream.
Since then, we’ve grown to be more patient and content—taking nothing for granted. We had the best teacher, Cece. We weren’t really sure how she would turnout, since the last few months of my pregnancy and a few months into her life were short of a walk in the park. But, she is the sweetest, most calm baby I’ve seen.
This goes to show that Jim and I were right—Cece was not a contraceptive mishap. She needed to be here and she didn’t come a minute too soon. All those who frowned upon my pregnancy before Jim and I married didn’t know that what was inside me would actually be giving Jim and I life, and not the other way around.
Cece is currently propped up on Jim’s shoulders, wearing a big smile and a shirt that says, ‘My Dad Beat a Tumor, How About Yours?’ We’re in line amongst a sea of people waiting to register for the ‘Get Your Head in the Game’ Awareness walk put on annually by the Kelly-Heinz Grundner Brain Tumor Foundation.
Jim
I’ve been tumor free for nine months and fourteen days. And let me tell you, it feels great. I’ve fought for each one of those days and will continue fighting for as long as I’m here. An ‘amen’ would be in order if Pam could hear me right now.
We drove here last night and we really didn’t know what to expect. But in the short ten minutes we’ve been in line, I already met a handful of survivors like me. I’ve even shared radiation nightmares with a couple of them. Usually, outsiders don’t understand what Pam and I went through, but to some level, everyone here does. It’s a good feeling.
During breakfast at the hotel we met a woman from Carbondale, Bonnie, and her six year old daughter, Kara, who is a brain tumor survivor. It’s their second time doing the walk, but this year they are celebrating ‘bein’ done,’ as Kara puts it. Pam shares the short version of our story and just like that they’re making plans to visit one another back at home. Pam tells me later that it’s nice to have someone who understands living so close.
After we register, Bonnie shows us around and takes us to this wall, Inspiration Wall, where people post pictures and letters they’ve written to loved ones who’s affected by a brain tumor or who has passed because of it. Bonnie takes a picture of her daughter and clips it to the wall, underneath it she has Kara write one word, ‘survivor.’
I see other pictures and other smiling faces, some big and some small, beaming at me. Some say ‘survivor,’ others say ‘will be missed,’ or ‘almost there.’ I pull Cece from my shoulder and hold her close to me. The breeze toys with her hair and she looks up at me with her mother’s eyes. I kiss her cheek and she puckers up for another and I kiss her again with a loud smacking noise. The kid giggles.
“Whatchu laughing about, Huh?” Pam says and tickles her belly. Cece contorts in my arms and burrows her face on my shirt. Pam smiles and looks up at me. “You’re still planning on carrying her all 5 kilometers?”
She’s just saying that because Cece is no lightweight. Baby folds are her style.
“Yeah.” I reply. Confident. “But she can walk too, if she wants.”
Pam rolls her eyes and begins to dig through the backpack on my back. “I’m just saying, don’t wimp out on kilometer number two.”
“I brought Kara’s stroller with me,” Bonnie chimes in. “Cecelia can borrow. Kara wants to walk.” She looks down at little Kara, who clearly disapproves the whole stroller thing too. “Sometimes we get tired, don’t we, Kare?”
“I’m gonna walk ALLLL the way,” Kara says. She’s missing her two front teeth.
Pam finally emerges from behind me with a photo in hand. It’s a picture of the three of us at the hospital. I’m on the bed, shaved head, holding a much younger Cece with Pam seated next to me. It’s a sad picture; I don’t know why she carries it with her.
She walks up to the wall and pins it there, running her hand over it. At the bottom she writes in her neatest cursive, survivor.
People start to gather around the center stage and shortly the opening remarks begin. The president of the foundation relates the short version of the mission statement and lays out the purpose of the walk. They read names of those who lost the fight and release white doves in their honor. Cece goes crazy, pointing at the birds and saying, ‘Loooh Da-da…loooh…” She claps and laughs at her own wit.
Shortly after, a little girl of about five, also a brain tumor survivor, pulls on a tied blue ribbon on stage and symbolically kicks off the walk.
Pam
Cece is a great icebreaker here. As we walk, it’s inevitable not to strike up a conversation with those around us. The first thing they notice about Jim and I, is her. Conversations starts out simple, ‘What’s her name?,” “Where you from?, “Your little girl is so cute.” Then the unavoidable questions come, “Why are you here?,” “Who are you here for?,” and “How long has it been?” It’s a little easier for Jim and I to share our story—it has a happy ending. Most of them don’t.
We are around kilometer two when Bonnie waves to someone to the right of us. Jim’s still strong with Cecelia on his shoulder. Kara is taking a ‘water break’ on her stroller.
A woman, not older than me, walks towards us and Bonnie welcomes her with a comforting hug. I already know the end of her story. Bonnie introduces her as Cindy from Virginia, and we exchange pleasantries. Cindy is immediately enamored with Cece. She looks wistfully at her.
“She’s so precious,” she says.
“Thank you,” I reply.
“How old is she?”
“Fourteen months.”
The woman keeps her gaze on Cece and I’m itching to ask her why she’s here. She asks to hold her and Jim’s a little too eager to hand her over to Cindy. I see him stretching his arms and rolling his shoulders after.
Cindy runs her hand over Cece’s curls and Cece gets a little fussy. She’s not too good with strangers. She arches her back and the woman reluctantly lowers her to the ground. She wobbles her chubby legs towards Jim, and instead of picking her up, he takes her hand and walks with her, lagging a few steps behind us. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling.
After Cindy bids us goodbye, Bonnie tells me her daughter died of a malignant brain tumor two years ago. Cece looked like her.
A shiver runs through my spine.
Jim
I’m pushing Cece on the stroller now, much to Pam’s amusement. It’s the last kilometer. I lasted ALL previous four with a future heavy weight champ in my arms. That’s something, right? But that’s nothing compared to what this little one, or what the one who gave her to me has done for me.
All worth it.
I didn’t get to hear what Bonnie’s friend said. But it shook Pam up a bit. She looked at me with glazed eyes and pulled Cece from the stroller and into her arms.
Sometimes I think what would have happened if I my story had a different ending. Who would my kid call dad? Who would Pam reach for at night? Whose outstretched arms would Cece have walked into when she took her first steps? I hate to think that there could be someone else there in my place, or worse, that there would be no one there.
Pam is a big believer that things happen for a reason. I am not so sure. I still can’t understand why we had to go through what we did, especially during the time in which it happened. I missed a month and then some of my daughter’s life. It just doesn’t seem fair. But Pam’s beautiful mind always sees the good, always sees a lesson to be learned.
Perhaps she is right. And I hope someday to see the whole thing under the same light she sees.
Pam
We made it! All 5 kilometers. It feels good. I feel really good. I heard so many stories and personal accounts from people who have been on our shoes and I’m so thankful for having been here today.
There’s a cookout in the end, and as I sit with Bonnie and Kara eating hamburgers, I spy Jim at the dessert stand feeding Cece ice cream. It is the funniest thing. Although he is holding the sugar cone, Cece has her tiny fingers curled around his bigger ones. The ice cream has melted all over their hands and it drips to the ground like paint. But that’s not the funny part. The funny part is when Cece opens her mouth really wide and goes for the ice cream, Jim smears it around her mouth, like he’s putting lipstick on her. She doesn’t mind and runs her tongue around her pink lips and goes for it again.
“And I was here thinking Jim was a good dad,” Bonnie chuckles.
“Look at her, she loves it.”
I tear up. If things had turned out differently, this would be one of the moments Cece would’ve missed out on. Bonnie is quick to notice.
“How hard was it?” She asks.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“How hard was it to almost lose him?” She says, “Losing Kara would’ve been the end of me.”
I let the tears roll. This is a safe place. “Um….When we found out, I was seven months pregnant, and all I could think of was him not getting to meet her.” I breathe in and out. “Jim and I had a bit of a timing problem in the beginning, but when everything was finally perfect, it happened. I couldn’t get my head around it.”
Bonnie nods. She knows.
“I found out we were having a girl. We promised to keep it a surprise, but I couldn’t wait. I just wanted something I could look forward too... I let it slip, the day before she was born.”
“Oh no, how?”
“I had been so cautious, you know? But I guess my guard was down and the contractions were coming and Jim was going crazy and I said ‘she’ when I referred to the baby. I really thought he would be mad, but God, you had to see his face. And I thought, ‘he needs to be here, she needs to meet him…’ If this was Jim’s fate, at least I had all those memories of us. But what would she have?”
I look at Jim and Cecelia and she is covered in ice cream—it’s in her hair, her clothes, Jim’s clothes—just everywhere! “I always knew Jim would be a great dad,” I say and release a tear soaked chuckle. “I always wanted her to have that.”
“To be covered in chocolate ice cream?”
“Yes.”
Jim
I have covered Cece and I in ice cream. Pam admonished us, but I know she didn’t mean it. She was laughing all the way. And because I knew she would laugh, we saved some ice cream just for her.
The day’s events come to a close and Pam and I begin to pack up. Pam tears up saying good-bye to all the good friends we’ve made here today while vowing to see them again next year. This was an experience we’re never going to forget. I’m really lucky I got to share it with my girls. It will be the new family tradition.
Cece is tired out, slumbering on my shoulder. I think she had the most fun. I lower her in the car seat and she wakes up a little, floating between sleep and awake, not really knowing where she is. She extends her little hands towards me and very sleepily says, “Noooo, Da-da.”
“S’okay Cee, go night-night,” I say and kiss her hair. But she’s insistent and begins to whine. And because she has me so tight around her little finger, I unbuckle her and lift her to me. She quiets right away. Pam chuckles somewhere behind us.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing,” she brushes it off, knowing I rarely deny Cece when she calls me dad. It’s my Achilles’ heal. “Come sit,” she says motioning to a bench. I sit next to her and she says, running her hand over Cece’s hair. “She’s too tired.”
“Either that, or it’s a sugar crash.”
She chuckles. “My poor baby.”
I gaze at my amazing wife and lower my lips to meet hers. This woman will always take my breath away. “So,” I begin as our lips part. “This was really nice, huh?”
“Yeah, good turnout,” she says, smiling sheepishly at me.” Bonnie said there was twice the number of people here this year.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-hm.”
I adjust Cece on my shoulder and with my free hand, I pull Pam to me. She fits right in the crook on my arm. I kiss her hair and she smells of fruit and barbeque. Cece shifts in my arm, turning her flushed face towards me. She’s sweaty and her hair sticks to her forehead. I always deny it and say she looks like Pam, but the kid, aside from her curly hair, is exactly like me.
Pam pushes Cecelia’s hair away from her forehead and says, “She’s so much like you.”
“Nah… She’s totally you.” I wink to make sure she knows it too.
Pam
We drive back, mostly in silence, listening to Cece’s deep breathing in the back seat. I rest my head on the headrest and turn to look at Jim. He looks at me and smiles. His cheeks are full and flushed. His hair sticks out from underneath his baseball cap. I want another baby with his smile.
Jim
We get home, and I have to say, it’s good to be here. Cece raises her hands in the air and says, “O-oome.”
I do the same. “Home!”
She smiles really big, showing all her teeth. When you have a kid you’re always celebrating something, being home is at the top of our list.
“Is Cece going night, night now?” I ask her.
She beans that mischievous grin of hers and says, “Nooo.”
I guess I'm not either.
Pam
Jim and Cece are asleep on the couch. Cece is sprawled over his chest wearing only her diaper. Somewhere between playing baby dolls and watching WALL-E her clothes went missing. Jim has only one sock on and a pink clip clinging to a few strands of his hair.
I keep my gaze on the two most important people in my life. The scene is very poignant. I must sketch this.
Jim
I wake up and the streetlights wash the living room in orange. Cece is asleep on my chest and Pam is slumped over our love seat across from us. I get up and carefully lay Cece on the couch. She’s out for the night. I walk over to Pam and I see her art supplies scattered around her feet. Tucked between the couch cushions I find her sketch book.
I pull it to me and leaf through the pages. There’s a lot of Cece in here. Pam’s an amazing artist. But on the last page I see what she was doing while Cece and I slept. There’s a replica, almost photo-like sketch image of us. I smile and when I go to put it down, a folded piece of paper falls from it.
I unfold it, and when I realize what it is, it surprises me that she has kept it all this time.
“What you got there?” She asks around a yawn.
I turn around and hold the paper for her to see. “Why’d keep this?”
“It’s when I knew.”
I sit next to her. “Knew what?”
“That you weren’t gone.”
I gaze at her and smile. “I could never be gone.” I gesture to Cece.
“Yeah,” she says pensively.
She lays the piece of paper on the coffee table and the two scribbled c’s stare back at me.
“You weren’t getting rid of me that easily,” I joke. We’ve talked about this, about everything. Today just brought up feelings we had tucked away. “Should we call it a night?”
“Yes,” she says.
I gather Cece in my arms and together we climb the stairs to Cece’s bedroom. After we tuck her in, we tuck ourselves in, snuggling closely for warmth. When Pam’s breaths even out, I know it won’t be long until I surrender to sleep too.
I inhale and exhale, saying to no one in particular,”Not a bad day.”
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you guys so much for sticking with me and all the angst here. This has been great.
EmilyHalpert helped me with Beta'ing this. I own nothing!
Chapter End Notes:
In memory of my loving uncle (1968-2010).
Dedeen is the author of 20 other stories.
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