The Staircase Letters (10 page)
Read The Staircase Letters Online
Authors: Arthur Motyer
It was a further week before Elma felt strong enough to write a letter on her own, this time sending the same one to Carol and me as she sent to a number of other friends, but showing some evidence of an inability to express herself in clear sentences:
All of you, please send some prayers, thought-waves, etc., for my assessment on the 3rd of April. I hadn’t realized that I did have some hopes for that very faint light at the end of the tunnel until I’ve now learned how much faster my brain functions are deteriorating than are my physical, except that they’re interdependent, of course—in a sense, everything is a brain function … I’m afraid when they assess me now, they’ll say—forget it—it’s not worth it. (Probably true, too.) But pray that I will accept whatever I’m landed with, and do so with peace and humour.
Love, thanks, and—anyone who wants to even talk to me on the phone, or e-mail me, one last time had better get moving! I’m sorry I’m going to be so disoriented and confused for the rest of the future. Really, so as not to tire myself
too much for even talking, I should get you to pick a number or buy a lottery ticket! Getting to see me or talk to me may be a matter of luck!
Right now, I am busy choosing music for my funeral. I think
not
“When the saints go marching in,” but I like “So long, it’s been good to know ya,” or “I’ve done laid around this ol’ town too long, and it seems like it’s time to travel on.” If you want a tear-jerker, I’m very fond of “Ye Banks and Braes” and also of “Loch Lomond”—“Ye’ll tak’ the high road … and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.”
I apologize to those who may feel I’m being a trifle
too
flippant. Sorry, guys, that’s my style, it’s how I cope, and absolutely no disrespect is meant to anyone or any power.
Pass the word—but discreetly.
Elma
Two days later, I received a note of my own.
Dear A.,
Whatever he may say, Mart is having a very tough time right now—it is finally hitting
him that he
is
going to lose me. I’ve been trying for ages to get him to believe that this whole business will be much harder on him than on me, but men are so
stubborn
—they have to tough it out. Women have the advantage of being used to talking about their feelings, and accepting emotional support from groups of friends. Men, in general, it seems to me, don’t have those kinds of friendships; won’t ask for help; won’t let themselves break down. I know there are lots of exceptions, but I seem to run into the rule—maybe partly because of my age. Anyway, Mart is going to need a
lot
of help and feelings of being cared about in the next year or whatever, and he is grateful for it, whether he shows it or not. You are very good about expressing these things. Also, you have many interests—like music and the theatre, in fact, literature in general—in common, so maybe you could drop him an e-line occasionally? Or a short story? (Only if you feel like it—I’m not trying to pull a “to you from failing hands” deal here, as if I were John McCrae in Flanders Fields!) And do you
have any more stories for
me
while I can still follow a plot line?
Ever … ever … ever …
E.
Dear E.,
I am keeping all fingers and toes crossed that you will hear something reassuring from your assessment tomorrow; and yes, of course, I will keep in touch with Martin, as I will with you through all those ways known to anyone aware that we are more than just physical and material beings. You will be around when I listen to Mahler. You will always be part of my life when I read poetry, especially Hopkins, which I did the other day, reading aloud to myself “The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo,” thinking it was meant for you—“See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost … the thing we freely forfeit is kept with fonder a care, fonder a care kept than we could have kept it.” If necessary, I will always remind Martin of these truths, so don’t worry.
As for short stories, did I ever send you “Lions at Delos”? You might like that one. I’ll print it for you if you haven’t got it already.
Any recent news of Carol? I see there is to be a reading in her honour at Harbourfront in Toronto. All sorts of writers will be there, including Michael Ondaatje.
Ever … ever … ever …
A.
Like Elma, Michael had been a student of mine at Bishop’s University, but he arrived in 1962, the year after she graduated. Had they been there together, each would have admired the other’s gifts, the sensitivity, the intelligence, the rare insights, evidenced at this early age, each of them rejoicing in language. Although she never mentioned it to me in her last years, I like to think that Elma might, at some point, have read these lines from Michael’s book of poems
Handwriting
, published in 1998, for she would have greatly admired them, as I do. A teacher can be humbled—this one, anyway—by a former student whose use of English points out “an unknown field or surprising city over the horizon.”
It was water in an earlier life I could not take into my mouth when I was dying. I was soothed then the way a plant would be, brushed with a wet cloth, as I reduced all thought into requests. Take care of this flower. Less light. Curtain. As I lay there prone during the long vigil of my friends. The ache of ribs from too much sleep or fever—bones that protect the heart and breath in battle, during love beside another. Saliva, breath, fluids, the soul. The place bodies meet is the place of escape.
Elma’s reply to me showed once more how clear her critical judgment could be on her good days. Even as a student, forty years earlier, she had never been afraid to speak her mind.
Dear A.,
Yes, I did read “Lions,” but though, as I said at the time, I found the descriptions very evocative, I also found the story itself a bit predictable. I preferred “The Baptism,” which I think you sent at the same time. “Her Treasures” is still my favourite.
You said all the right things regarding poetry associations and also regarding Mart— he knows a lot of Hopkins by now.
Everybody except me seems to have heard about the release of Carol’s book. Can’t remember if I told you I got an advance proof from Random House. Have you seen any reviews? I haven’t, and would love to know what the word is. I have only read it once, so can’t make a final assessment, but so far I think it’s her Big One. I loved it. A wonderful note to end on.
Like me, C. goes up and down in wild swings—more down than up. I’ve told her I’ll race her to the bottom of our downhill ski race or whatever this is.
Ever … ever … ever …
E.
I wrote back the next day, unaware that she had asked of me her last question in what was to be her last letter. She was racing Carol to the bottom of the hill and getting there first.
Dear E.,
Yes, you did tell me you had read an advance proof of Carol’s book, and I’m so glad you liked it; but no, I haven’t seen any reviews of it yet.
I stopped writing short stories because I never seemed to get anywhere with them, but I’ll look to see if I have anything else you might like to read.
This is your assessment day. I am thinking of you.
Ever … ever … ever …
A.
It was the day after the April 3rd assessment that Martin wrote to me and others on Elma’s list.
First of all, the radiotherapy specialist stressed that she continues to feel very encouraged by the results of the CT scan that was done on February 9, which showed that all of the brain tumours have been reduced in size by the radiotherapy that was performed last fall.
Secondly, she said very firmly that she will not advise a second round of radiotherapy at
this time, which would involve a high risk of very undesirable side effects, including drastic memory loss and personality change.
This carried an implication that had not occurred to either of us before today: Elma’s recent memory loss and disorientation may be in part a side effect of the radiotherapy of last fall, and not simply due to the brain tumours now starting to grow back. In other words, the recent symptoms should not lead us to conclude that the tumours are growing wildly right now. That is good news so far as Elma’s current life expectancy is concerned, though, as usual, the doctor would not volunteer any specific estimate. She said very earnestly to Elma, “You have a good quality of life right now.” But perhaps this was just because she only saw Elma sitting down: Elma moving around does not look like a well person these days. Or it may be a reflection on the overall health of her other patients.
She has ordered a bone scan, which will take place within a few weeks (to make sure that the recent problems with ribs and jaw are
not due to the cancer’s having spread to the bones). The last bone scan was done in September, and was negative. There is no reason to think that this one will come back positive. Other than that, she advises us to concentrate on alleviating the jaw pain—with various pain killers for the short run and physiotherapy for the longer run.
There’s to be an appointment with the oncologist who is coordinating Elma’s cancer treatment on Thursday, April 11. It will represent the next stage in the decision-making. Martin
[Elma writes: Thanks to all of you for your love and support. I have somewhat mixed feelings at the moment: a definite decision to do something, however risky, always appeals to me. However, the doctor was
very
firm about the danger of more radiotherapy. Basically, she’s saying, “You’ve done marvellously well so far. Why mess with a good thing?”
I want to thank all of you again for being there for me at all times throughout this rather trying—and scary—period, and I know it has
been hard on my family and friends as well! We are also grateful for your having left us in peace today—which we needed—though we are anxious to talk to you individually when time and energy permit.
All this sounds so stilted.
Hey guys, I love you all
Elma]
“I do feel sorry for you reading all this whining,” Elma had written in the first of these Staircase Letters, but it was now more than a year later, and neither she nor Carol had ever given a hint of whining. They might have wished for more time to love the world they were in and to finish what they had set out to do, but they never complained. They were making a last journey together, and they would hold fast, as Ulysses did:
… that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts
,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
.
A genuine lover of Victorian poetry, the young student Elma and now the older, dying Elma would never dismiss Tennyson as old-fashioned and sentimental, irrelevant in today’s sterner world. I am reminded also of Stanley Spencer, the highly regarded British artist, who died almost seventy years after Tennyson. Because he could no longer speak, he wrote down his last words: “Sorrow and sadness is not for me.” For Carol and Elma, their message was the same.
Not realizing that what I would be writing next would be my last letter to Elma, I assured her on the same day that she was seeing her oncologist that I was thinking of her.
Dear E.,
I think of you every day, of course, and know that today you are seeing your oncologist, so I will be anxious to hear about that when you or Martin can tell me.
I have started to read
Unless
with real delight. Books have to stand on their own, I know, without the reader having to know much (even anything) about the author; but
when a personal thread is there, appreciation can be heightened. Such discipline and freedom in the writing! I am reminded of my friend Joe Plaskett, the artist: when I see his work, I realize more than ever that he, at eighty-three, has the insight and the skills to paint anything he wants to paint, and he does. Carol, too, uses language now in any way she wants, and with an unerring sense for what’s right, to say all the perceptive things she has to say, and I am full of admiration.
Today was a real spring day, and I worked in the garden this afternoon. I have aching muscles tonight to prove it! I hope you are having some good days. I’m sure you inspire all those around you.
Ever … ever … ever …
A.
But it was Martin who responded the next day, giving news of Elma to me and a number of her friends.
Hello everyone,
I am writing to let you know that at Elma’s appointment with the oncologist, on Thursday afternoon, we turned the corner from active treatment to palliative care.
The bone scan ordered by the radiotherapy specialist will be done next Tuesday, as scheduled. If the result is positive, the doctor has said it will be possible to treat the two very painful sites (rib and jaw) with radiotherapy. But aside from that, the only treatments that will be undertaken will be to relieve pain and discomfort. Elma is being enrolled in the palliative care program of the Winnipeg Health Authority, which is a truly excellent program.
I see now that there would have been an opportunity—late last fall, before the chemo and radiotherapy had completely shrivelled up the primary lung tumour—for metastatic bone cancer to have got started. I think this must be what the doctor suspects. It would certainly explain the severe pain Elma has experienced in those locations. The pain is not nearly so unbearable, now that we have learned how to
use Tylenol 3 tablets to best effect. (It means waking her up every four hours to take the pain killers. A bit like getting up to feed a newborn baby.) But we’ll move on to morphine next week if that seems to be called for.
The oncologist, who will never speak of expected survival except in terms of averages—quite properly, since that is all that medical science can tell us—was nonetheless very emphatic in saying, “Your family should come and visit you
now
!” Beth and George, as luck would have it, are already flying over from Paris tomorrow.
We came home from the hospital with a walker, which Elma is so far refusing to use, just like her stubborn old dad in his arthritic old age, although she promised she would not emulate him in that respect.
Our love to you all,
Martin
