My father's mother, Bubby Sylvia, first began to feel ill in 1985, when I was seven and Peter was two. My mother tells me that even before I was born Bubby Sylvia would recount stories of going to the doctor's office for checkups, and being told that her bloodwork showed somewhat strange results, but that she was asymptomatic and so, the doctors hadn't bothered to look further. Finally, some ten years after this all began, her blood revealed that she was so sick that the doctors had no choice but to look further.

In 1985, she was diagnosed with kidney cancer and had her left kidney removed.

Peter and I had always been so close to Bubby Sylvia; in my childhood I remember being closer to her than I had ever been to my own parents. She was gentle and infinitely patient with both of us, but she spoke her mind. She was the only person I had ever considered to be unintelligent - in the bookish sense, that is - yet still worthy of my love and respect.

Bubby's surgery went reasonably well, it seemed; in actual fact, the doctors hadn't managed to remove all of the cancer. But if I were to go by my observations of her alone, I would have to conclude that cancer wasn't so terrible a fate. She never complained; she never expressed to us that she was anything but excited to see us.

I knew that one day she might die. When I was eight I didn't think that I could live without her.

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posted by Adelaide at 7/1/2000 4:44:49 PM