Third Time's the Charm?
I hope. Yesterday my partner and I learned that someone we've known for the last twenty years, since I came to this city, is struggling with her cancer. We learned last year that she had it, was going in for surgery and chemo. Yesterday we were told that she was going in for a third surgery, more chemo. That what they'd tried first wasn't working.
We've known her for 20 years, back when we were still young, early- to mid-20s, and she was a little older than us, but not much. In the meantime we each got married, watched our careers grow in unexpected ways. In both cases, no children. We never wanted any, and never asked her. It's funny to think that in what feels like a blink of an eye, a quarter of a life has passed. Maybe. Maybe less.
The news has been gnawing at me since my partner told me last night when she got home. Her unexpected quiet unsettling for me, her demeanour almost always unflappable. The last time I saw her like that was five years ago, when she got off the phone, and told me in a very quiet voice that there had been an accident, that one of our friends had died.
This isn't that - this person straddles that strange line between acquaintance and friend, but has been a regular part of our life for almost two decades. I hope the surgery takes. That the chemo holds.