23. Birdsong

I was driving home the other day with the noisy boys crammed into the van with me and I was suddenly hit by this overpowering need to scrawl out my thoughts. Often my ideas percolate and I have to coax them out but sometimes they just fire themselves at me full speed. This was one of those trying to drink from a firehose moments. 

I’ve had massive brain fog and mental fatigue lately (sheesh, wonder why?!) and I knew if I didn’t catch as many of these ideas right as they exited my head that I’d never see them again, so I had to hurriedly voice-dictate notes into my phone before the ideas and thoughts disappeared into the crumb-infested interior of my van. I scrambled to put enough key bits together while the kids were talking overtop of each other as we drove home from the library. Not exactly an environment conducive to writing and drafting and brainstorming but here we are! If I waited until my kids and my brain were quiet, I’d never write anything, ever.

We’d just had a collective family flashback to living in Vancouver, some random thing twigging our memories and prompting a vivid snapshot of our former life. It was mostly cheerful as they kids happily recounted RMH life but of course it was more than a little bittersweet for me. “Oh yeah! I remember that…. Oh and then we had this, went there, had that, played with so and so….” We rattled off our piece of family lore and shared a laugh. I was struck by how long it had been since we’d been doused by a wave of nostalgia, startled to realize we’ve been home and living here more than six months.

Then I was struck with very specific and seemingly odd picture in my mind… clear as day. It was my front stairs, just five wooden stairs and a handrail outside my home, not noteworthy but somehow the perfect metaphor. But to explain the porch, I have to tell about the whole house first. 

I’ve lived in our house in central Nanaimo for almost six years. I’ve lived in a lot of houses. Most people don’t really believe me when I say this. They laugh and maybe even roll their eyes or tell me their own large number. But I’ve lived in 30+ houses. It’s only been in the last few years that my age is higher than my “houses lived in” number. The longest I’d lived anywhere before was four years. I haven’t lived in very many cities, just lots of houses within them. A local nomad. 

I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. Four of the almost six years here I’ve been a single parent. And while our lives have changed SO dramatically in the last six years, I had this moment of realization that the twins haven’t lived in a different house. And Vance was too young to remember moving here. This home is a constant in our wild and wearying life.

When we moved in during the summer of 2020 I was pregnant with twins in a global health crises. Five weeks later my water broke and I spent five weeks in hospital. The twins spent another four weeks in the NICU. Then a few years later, Mercer spent 10 months in Vancouver for cancer treatment… so of his 5 years of life, he’s spent an entire year in hospital or hospital accommodations. 20% of his life. Twenty percent!!! It’s enough to take my breath away. This house has been central to those memories. 

It changes how you look at a place when you realize you’ve never done this before. Never stayed so long, never rearranged the furniture this many times, never worked and reworked the same room over and over. It’s wonderful! But also, I looked at my baseboards and couldn’t believe how horrible and chipped and bedraggled they looked, how all the walls are pockmarked and grubby… and it hit me. I’ve never lived anywhere long enough to see this type of wear and tear. 

Our house is fairly old, maybe 60, 70 years? But it’s been redone inside sometime in the last ten years and it’s got millennial gray flooring and an IKEA kitchen and it’s a great neutral backdrop. It suits us perfectly and I love it. I actually forget how old it is because it looks new-ish. Nothing is hideously outdated. The outside hasn’t changed much since it was built. It’s got pebbledash siding that’s been painted a few times, the roof got replaced while we were in Vancouver. The shrubs are all ancient and overgrown and practically trees. The actual trees are giants and something is always dropping leaves or pollen. We’re tucked into our neighborhood and it feels cozy, comfortable, home. 

But the wood on our exterior tells a story that the redone interior of the house doesn’t reveal. It’s an old little porch, protected under the deep eaves and set back behind some ground decking. Five wooden steps with a railing and a small landing. It’s a simple entrance but it’s been well loved. The boys slide down the banister. The door mat gets changed with the seasons. We’ve eaten snacks there. Received Christmas gifts there. Friends have crossed the threshold, babies in car seats set down on it while we hug goodbye. It’s been played at, crumbed up, tripped up, groceries delivered to it constantly, beach toys stacked on it, tiny water shoes drying on it in the summer, a mini Christmas tree on it in the winter. Halloween pictures. First day of school pictures. Back home from RMH pictures. Just one dumb little porch, but a lot of goodness lands there. 

When I sit there, listening to my hooligan children hooting and hollering and playing, I see the thick painted surface of the hand rail. I can just tell it’s old from every single thing about it. I look intently at the dark gray paint flecks torn away at the busiest intersections of the wood. Scratched away to reveal a green below. How old is that green? Which family painted that? Did other mothers sit here on this stoop in their robe with a hot coffee catching a reprieve from their children? And beneath the green, a burgundy colour, older still, and beyond that a tan, oldest of all. How many babies were brought home here? How many heartbreaking conversations happened on this stoop? How many hugs goodbye, hello.

It’s hard to imagine this house any other colour than our beloved dark grey. Hard to even fathom this place living a full life before us, loved and lived in by nameless, faceless others. What was the green house like? What about the burgundy?? The tan?? What memories and mysteries are held there in those layers. That life is gone, those people elsewhere, but that house still exists. It sits under the surface, forgotten, until something scratches the surface and reveals a former life. Long-lost memories and moments. 

That’s exactly how it felt sitting in the van, a sudden tear in the paint revealing our old life. Losing my marriage in early motherhood taught me that you don’t lose your old life. You exist within yourself as you grow, like nesting dolls or layers of paint. My childhood self sits inside my adult self inside my wife self and mother self and now cancer carer self. We are constantly overwritten. Saved overtop. Remade but kept mostly in tact, sealed away under a new layer. 

The life we lived didn’t disappear when we moved home. We just painted on top. A new fresh coat, sloppily tossed on, fingerprints smudged in where we touched it when it was still wet. And when people look at us they might not see the color underneath that we know is there. Heck, even we forget about it. But a hasty paint job always leaves behind spots you missed, imperfections. And any pressure, injury, settling, shifting… will reveal the layers beneath. The helicopter lands next door on the hospital helipad… a tiny crack. New bruises appear on shins unexplained… flecks of paint fly off. Spot a picture of the chubby steroid face… chipped edges appear. 

One of the craziest parts is you might not even notice that you’ve got a new coat of paint on your life. This seems impossible but humans are largely poor at noticing. 

I grew up going to church. Mostly the same church, a big (ugly) 90s-built stucco church. PINK stucco. With a blue metal roof. It was, to be quite frank, hideous. It was in a prominent spot in town. And it was built when money was tight and they had one chance to pull it off. So they got the bargain options without much thought about style or longevity. So, decades go by and the church is still dated. It’s a large building so it’s gonna be heaps of money to upgrade. 

Eventually the timing is right— people are sick of being “the pink church with the blue roof”, rightfully so, and there’s finally money to paint the exterior walls. The roof will have to wait, however, so they are forced to pick a color that doesn’t look entirely dreadful with a blue roof. A nice, warm, inoffensive taupey colour is picked. It’s not cold or uninviting, not too bold, not too wimpy. Probably just right for a big community building. It gets painted and the group responsible are so pleased it’s finally done!

And?

No one friggin notices!!! 

“Aren’t you so happy it’s not pink anymore?!”

“What? I thought it was still pink…”

They could barely tell. No one really remembered what it was like or could tell if it had changed…. It just happened one day and it mostly went without comment. Once something is there— people forget what it was like before. 

We’ve been back in Nanaimo for half a year. But it feels like no time at all? It can almost  feel like we never were even living at the hospital until —wham— I’m sidelined by a memory or recollection. Life moves so incredibly fast when you’re raising children and once you’re in a different environment, your brain occupies itself dealing with the day to day regular stuff. 

How blessed am I that I’m struggling with this? This means I’m not living in crisis! It means Mercer is well enough to play, to grow hair, to learn math problems, to take his meds, to jump and run and goof off without worry. I so desperately wanted to be back here, in this position. I’m living in the answers to so many people’s prayers! I am absolutely overflowing with gratitude!

But also, dang. Those layers of paint—revealed by triggers or trauma… it’s so emotionally tiring. Wearying. It’s numbing sometimes. Or overwhelming. When something awful happens in your life, there is an acute and painful tenderness — like you’re so paper thin you might bleed out or blow away… you’re so raw that everything is dazzlingly tender and even a breeze sets all your synapses on fire. When you’re there, it’s impossible to conceive of feeling any other type of way. 

But slowly, over time, maybe even without you noticing, a new coat of paint is being applied. Sloppy or careful, a good color or bad, intentionally or not…. It’s changing. Until one day you might notice something feels different. Or you might only see it’s changed when a crack reveals what’s underneath. Either way, it’s progress. Either way, it’s forward. 

As a certified-firstborn-rule-following-daughter, I absolutely loathe when changes are made without my explicit intention, permission, and planning. I cannot stand it when I realize I was unintentionally changing in an unknown and unplanned direction. I did all the things right, dang it! I deserve the good, and right outcome, thank you very much. And of course; at every turn I am reminded that life isn’t like that. Life has never been like that. And who the heck told me that because where did I even get that stupid idea?!

So it’s a little bit annoying that I’ve been painting overtop of myself with this new life and it’s too late by the time I realize. Some of the things were carefully chosen — spend time with my family, drink a coffee and watch the hummingbirds, homeschool my kids while I can, sit at the beach and wonder at it, soak up the laughter and appreciate the couldn’t-tell-he’s-sick days, choose joy in tiny, miraculous, mundane ways. 

And a lot of it was not chosen, it just happened. Lately that has felt like weeks on end hanging out waiting for blood counts, missing out on big social things, wondering if I made the right choices, the emotional fragility for all of us, missing our friends and city life, grieving some of the easiness we can think we had before. The strangeness of being homesick for a place we can’t go back to… the ache in our hearts for our friends still in the thick of heavy treatment. The lump in my throat as my kids casually tell kids at the playground that Mercer has cancer.

Spring brings fresh perspective and things begin to feel like they’re awakening — energy, inspiration, nature, ambition, dreams. All of it feels so much more tenable when the sun is shining through the rain and the buds are erupting. These last few weeks we’ve been driving past cherry blossoms and the boys spot and count them —each one a cherished visual reminder spring is here. We made it.

Today I left our front door open for hours as the birds chirped and sang to each other. We’ve all noticed the robins sitting on our fence, our trees, poking around the back garden. It feels like a miracle. Like it was never going to come. The birds are so noisy, unseen, but heard through our neighborhood. Spring is so impossibly refreshing. But I also had this strange wave of pain as I asked my boys if they could hear the birds’ chatter.

Mercer had an ear infection that launched our leukemia discovery. It perforated his ear drum and then, 11 months later, he had another ear infection during the lowest parts of his delayed intensification cycle. Thankfully it was caught quickly and responded well to antibiotics then, but what no one realized at the time was that his perforation never healed. And it still hasn’t healed. And hearing loss is a not uncommon side effect of childhood cancer and chemotherapy treatments. 

I just recently found out from the Ear Nose and Throat specialist that Mercer needs hearing testing. That his perforation won’t heal on its own and that he will definitely need preventative measures to be sure he doesn’t get water in his ears and he may also need a hearing aid until he’s old enough for a surgical repair of his ear drum. Surgery isn’t successful in kids his age because every little cold and flu puts enough pressure on the repair that it fails, so it’s a waiting game. He’ll need routine check up’s as he continues chemo and then as he finishes and he grows older. 

When you zoom out — none of that is earth shattering. We’re blessed to live in a place where he can get the specialized care he needs (literally a 2 minute drive from our home) and there’s no stigma with hearing loss or major issues and there are answers and supports for kids like him! Wow!

But also… there is so much grief and sadness. Has he been struggling to hear for a long time and we didn’t know? Could he have been helped sooner? Will this be a visual reminder of his physical differences? We’re finally in a place where, unless you see his port, no one can visually see his cancer. What’s wrong with me that I’m even worried about that? Am I being ableist? Am I just in an anxiety spiral? Yes, probably that last one for sure.  

So I stood at the open door and took in the birdsong, soaked in the beauty of the moment, and shed a silent tear for my boy for whom the birdsong may not have been heard hardly at all. 

What a joy to witness spring, to be filled with hope, flooded with sunshine, to breathe easier. What a devastation to see the fall out of chemo and illness and to carry the grief of childhood cancer. What a joy to see my child be brave and unashamed and unafraid. “I kinda hope I need hearing aids!” He said. He thinks they would be cool 🥹 we’ll see what the results show, and what the future holds but for now I’ll listen to the birds and drink my iced coffee and laugh with my boys as we bumble along. 

We’ve met every obstacle head on. We’ve made it through 100% of the hard days, and we’ve been pulled through by love and prayers and we’ve forged forward with grit and humour and we’ve strung ourselves along from joy to joy, like fairy lights.