Protection

Someone who is willing to throw themselves in front of the bus about to hit you while pushing you out of the way truly has your best interests at heart.

On one hand, you may wish to scold that person for having no preservation instincts for themselves or placing too low a value upon their own survival. That scold may come too late, especially in the afore-mentioned scenario, but guaranteed you will practice that harangue in your mind for the rest of your life.

A similar dilemma has opened itself involving Scott and my relatives with whom he is a texting buddy. He established his credibility with several of my nieces, nephews and their spouses by being their eyes and ears at my surgery. This prevented what both of us wished preventing--long trips to Indianapolis for them that were not viable (they live 2-2 1/2 hours north and all work, of course), and on my part, the guilt I'd feel being ill and requiring their presence when I'm clearly too out of it to appreciate the gesture. Scott both helped and healed in this instance.

Apparently, he was a very charming correspondent as he has gone on to endear himself to my family by other reports, of which I've been kept dumb. That's fine, of course--I want my extended family to understand my choice of partner, I'm happy they approve and as circumstances draw us all closer--I want them to feel comfortable, and I want to be comfortable, being ourselves.

I've always been the gay uncle, I've always been the gay brother, I've always been the odd man out. Let's say that in a blue chambray family, I've always been the plaid with the vividly magenta stripe. My peripatetic ways, my restlessness, my desires to see and know the world are all not Price virtues. Stolid desires for buying a piece of Northern Indiana property and working in one place for 47 or so years would be closer to the ideal--but of course, even that ideal is changing to suit the times. Its geographic locus hasn't changed, even if it admits more of divorce and new loves, new jobs and different outlooks, than it did in decades past. I may not be wholly magenta anymore but there's still some chartreuse on my actions.

Scott suits the slightly more adventurous, younger, and more diverse Prices quite well.

I find that his continued reporting on me has crossed into territory that I might have found disturbing at one time, but now understand differently. During my recent sudden trip north he and my niece were having a text conversation that included warnings of how to react to my appearance--which admittedly is different these days. My new jaw is not completely at home on my old face--there's yet swelling along incision lines, and where muscle has been pulled up and reintroduced to jaw née fibia. I am 35 pounds lighter than they've ever known me. I do not move as fast, I occasionally use a cane. I cannot speak quite as clearly as I used to, and the type of words I'm want to say do have much more impact when enunciated clearly.

It's not lost to me that I am a surprise. I am occasionally a surprise to myself when I get up in the middle of the night to suction out a bit of problematic phlegm and see myself in the mirror--there's a long, dragon-looking incision where tissue was taken out of my chest to fill what used to be my tongue--and my left nipple occupies a part of my body that is clearly not were it was born to be. The pecs I tried to have are gone, victims of a long period of too little nourishment and the thudding weight loss so often associated with cancer. My biceps--and I did really like them--gone! My mouth has not resettled yet, so often my lower lip feels balloonish, while the area around the new jaw is still without much sensation. Yes, that is a surprise, not always a good one, either.

Scott's warning might have--in another life, or to another person--be constructed as a dishonesty to the fact that he tells me I'm sexy and attractive still--but to this  person now, I find what he's doing consistent to his nature to protect. Sweet, even. He has shown time and time again that the bus that's heading for me will meet his body before mine.

I could see that I surprised some of my family, but frankly, evenly with all these changes, I haven't had a personality transplant. I may not be able to tell my brother Jim that if he doesn't shut up I'd jam a foot up his backside, but pantomime and indication, I find, still work to assure my family that is exactly what I mean. And when my nieces act up, certain eye rolls and even my poor enunciation make "bitch, please" utterly understandable. I've never stood on ceremony with any of my relatives, and I don't intend to climb the cancer podium now.

Always the snappy one liner and more vulgar uncle, I hope I'm also the one that cares enough about them to want them to know me with no filters--and the only objection I'd ever find to Scott warning them not to over-react at my appearance is that I would consider their over-reaction part and parcel of the life we have. I do love them, and I'm certain they love me. Even at my most Frankenstein-ish with all the surgical staples still in, I'd like to think they could have dealt well.

I want them all to know that no matter what life throws at you, that you can get up and act with dignity and walk with grace while people stare at you. I want them to accept that cancer, very much part of our family's heritage, does not mean that they can give up and die. In fact, in honor of my sister and my mother--both incredible fighters--our legacy is to bitch slap back at cancer and refuse to allow it to rule everything.

It's hard to object to protection that comes from love. In fact, I don't really want to object at all. When I found out from one of my nieces what my erstwhile bulldog had been up to, I admit I laughed. A laugh that was born out the delight that someone would want to do that for me, and how thoughtful it actually was to believe that I needed a little buffering--and who knows, perhaps he was right.

I could have used him at the Starbucks I stopped at Wednesday morning. Yes, I cannot speak totally clearly, and I know this--but when I say "small coffee" frankly it is not THAT hard to understand. But the clerk who made me repeat this six times, and then turned to her coworker and said--"can you tell what this guy is saying? I sure can't" was not interested in trying. To her credit, the coworker got it on the seventh (but for her, first) try. You know what--bitch, please. The clerk by the way had obviously had too many breakfast pastries on that morning shift of hers and needn't have looked down on a 52 year old so-far-cancer-survivor without much of a tongue. Had my bulldog been around, she wouldn't have dared pull that stunt. That, my friends, is what protection and love are for...