The Cleaving ― a.k.a. Cracking Up

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack Up (1936)

My favorite word in the entire English language is "cleaving".  I learned somewhere, once upon a time, that it is the only word that means both itself and its opposite:

cleave - 1 klēv/ verb gerund or present participle: cleaving

1. split or sever (something), especially along a natural line or grain. "the large axe his father used to cleave wood for the fire" synonyms: split (open), cut (up), hew, hack, chop up; "cleaving wood for the fire"
   

   • split (a molecule) by breaking a particular chemical bond.

   • make a way through (something) forcefully, as if by splitting it apart. "they watched the boat cleave the smooth water" synonyms: plow, drive, bulldoze, carve"cleaving a path through the traffic"

   • BIOLOGY (of a cell) divide. "the egg cleaves to form a mulberry-shaped cluster of cells"

cleave - 2 klēv/ verb gerund or present participle: cleaving

1. stick fast to. "her mouth was dry, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth"
   

   • adhere strongly to (a particular pursuit or belief). "part of why we cleave to sports is that excellence is so measurable" synonyms: stick (fast), adhere, be more attached
     

   • become very strongly involved with or emotionally attached to (someone). "it was his choice to cleave to the Brownings" synonyms: adhere to, hold to, abide by, be loyal to, be faithful to"they were cleaving closely to the British empire"

The word itself, from both extremes, feels quite relevant at the moment:  it means strongly attaching to something, and it means forcefully splitting something apart.  This diagnosis, the swift shock of it, literally split us open.  My heart and Charlie's as well - each of us suddenly rent apart as cleanly as if a powerful axe had come down, our strongly rooted tree of life as we knew it felled by machete.  Expectations dashed, plans severed. The searing pain of it all. I did not know until I just cut & pasted the definition above that the word is also a biological term for cells dividing.  The cancer cells swiftly dividing and replicating in James's bone marrow, his blood.  The swift force of chemotherapy drugs splitting those cells open, tearing them apart to destroy them as quickly and forcefully as possible.

But again, there is an opposing powerful force to this trauma -the fierce love that has come out of this from all directions.  The coming together of family, of friends, of the whole support system that seems to expand as a growing web every day through friends old and new, acquaintances, colleagues, partners, distant family members, total strangers somehow touched by this odyssey from the dark corners of their own human grief.  I am deeply moved, and feel buoyed up and loved in a way that I haven't felt in years - simply because in daily life those intense connections and lifelines lie dormant.

And then there are the other contradictions and paradoxes inherent in this odyssey.The medicines attacking the foreign cells and getting us closer to "winning" the battle with every dose, yet also attacking his healthy body - weakening and cutting short his tender, budding childhood physical resolve.  Slowly poisoning him at the same time that they are saving his life. The prednisone steroids strengthening him, yet wreaking havoc on his mind and body with their insidious side effects - impossible for grown men to control let alone our very young.  His inability to control his appetite, his emotions, yelling out at night and desperately clinging to me during the day, pulling me towards him in the midst of a steroid-induced rage while he kicks me away all at once in an internal battle I can only begin to decipher.  His tender strokes all of a sudden mid-day when the effects have worn off, saying "I love you mommy, you're the best mommy in the world" - when moments earlier he had tried to rip off his own IV, screamed in rage at what a horrible, awful, mommy I was being to keep him in this place, to set limits like any loving parent would, to force him to swallow his oral medicines.  His insatiable appetite - salmon, eggs, bacon, soup, popcorn, pizza, pasta, SALT - juxtaposed with the intense nausea that food brings to his swollen belly (another side effect).

More contractions abound, swiftly multiply: the depletion of my own resolve, the waning energy, the flagging courage - and then a reminder and return to the restorative feeling that we are loved, we will get through this, we will get home, he will come back to himself.  That this horrible experience will leave us better than where we started from.  The mama bear love I feel for him, intensified, along with the inevitable frustration and anger I feel at what my life is right now, and at the marathon ahead.  The necessary weeping and grief I go through even while writing these journals (essays? blog posts? what the hell are these anyway?) and the (often morbid) humor and laughter they can summon that helps me regain my perspective and resolve.  The holding on to him, and the letting go. The strength in myself I feel building as we get further down this road, combined with the intense, raw vulnerability I feel.  A warm woman's healing hands on my body, nursing my muscles back from spasm, as I wonder at the ability to feel relief, even pleasure, in the middle of extreme pain. The need to be at his bedside as much as I can be - right there next to the extreme need to flee, to escape, to be anyone other than Cancer Mom for a minute, an hour, a day.  A lifetime.

And then there is the slight guilt I feel even about the self-absorption manifest in this very journal - what should be a primary vehicle for James, a fact-filled forum to update all who care about the back and forth progression of his disease, and instead has become a warp-speed vessel straight into the most intimate parts of my emotional life.  Charlie's voice absent due to his understandable time constraints, his unwavering commitment as a father and a partner as well as his unyielding commitments as a doctor, a caregiver, to patients and families fighting for their own lives and loved ones - two intense roles with opposing needs and forces and pressures of their own.  That reality as well as his own wonderfully sensitive, introverted nature quite different from mine, when his experience of this is just as deep and important to acknowledge and work though as my own. My own father, the fleeting images I have from childhood of his temper combined with his tenderness, the ferocious football coach one moment and the poet with pen the next.  The tempests I remember as a child of James's age, in actuality likely no more than a fleeting rainstorm, and the realization that in weathering those I became that much more attuned to the moods, emotions, nuances of others - my life's work now.  My hesitation in sharing all of this pain with those who just may not want to see (or share) quite as much of the horror show behind the curtain ... and then my newfound ability to let that go, just say screw it and write whatever the hell I need to write.  To those of you tuning in - thank you.  It matters to know that we are not bearing witness to all of this alone.

I ran by Harvard the other day on a quick respite from the hospital, right past my old undergraduate House on the River, and experienced anew the conflicting emotions I have about my time and experience there.  I wrote my honors thesis on the cathartic effects of writing.  Go figure.

And the final, paramount, ultimate paradox that I absolutely choose to believe right now: is it possible that when your heart breaks open, it just has that much more room to expand?