Amongst the Blue
Actual photo by R.J.F. Deisgn by FFP.
Angela was up there now.
Looking down into her casket I thought, this isn’t my friend. This isn’t the person that used to laugh loudly and easily, this isn’t the person that mentored me, this isn’t the person that would come through for her friends and family at the drop of a hat. This was just a body that was stolen by cancer, looking placid and almost unrecognizable.
I remember when Angela called me to tell me that she had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. I had been texting her for over a week, had called a couple of times only to be met by her voicemail. I didn’t want to keep calling or texting, so I waited to hear back from her, but she was taking her time, which was odd. I thought maybe she was just busy at work or with life, in general.
My phone finally rang, and when I picked up, I scolded her for taking so long to get back to me. She apologized and then told me what had been going on. A couple of months ago she had found a lump on one of her breasts. At the time, her insurance hadn’t kicked in, so she couldn’t go see a doctor right away. Fucking American health system at its finest. Although I was thinking it, I refrained from asking Angela why she hadn’t told me what had been happening.
By the time Angela called me, she had gone in for a biopsy. They had found cancer, and they were going to start helping her right away. Her sister had had breast cancer and beat it, her dad had also had a brain tumor and had beat that, so she was hopeful.
As she was telling me all this, I stared out the door in my bedroom that led to the backyard. It was an unusually rainy day and a downpour was happening. It was fitting that the weather was so moody, but it only added to the bad feeling I was getting. I don’t know what it was in me that thought she wasn’t going to make it, but that’s what I remember feeling when I got off the phone.
Double mastectomy. That was one of the first things they did to try and help Angela. I visited her in the hospital a couple of days after her surgery. I would’ve gone sooner, but I was getting over a cold, and her friend Mary, who was my contact person, said I should wait just in case I brought in any germs.
The hospital room was darkened and quiet when I entered. Angela was hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires, which were snaking out from under the white blanket she was under. She had an IV in her hand, various tubes coming out the bandages that were tightly wound around her chest, a heart monitor, and some other tubes and wires. She couldn’t move because of the pain, and the painkillers were also tethering her to her hospital bed. I had brought flowers, as if flowers would help in this situation, but I guess that’s just what we do in times like that.
After the surgery, and after she had sufficiently healed, she had to start radiation and chemo. The doctors were going full force on Angela because of the severity and nature of her cancer.
She was able to hold onto her hair for a little while during the chemo, but it eventually started getting thinner and falling out. I remember noticing bald patches and thinning in her once thick, wavy black hair. One day, she sent me a picture of her wrapped in a towel, sitting on a stool in her parents backyard, with a newly shaved head. Her long hair was in sections around her, and she was smiling in the picture. I didn’t know how to comfort her, I didn’t really know what to say. I thought maybe texting something that would make her laugh or make her feel tough might help, so I sent “You look punk rock!”
They found a tumor in her liver. She had the tumor removed, with a piece of her liver, and they continued on with treatments. I visited her after that surgery in the hospital, and she seemed in good spirits, or as good as one could be in that circumstance. Unlike with her double mastectomy, she was awake and laughing when I got there. She didn’t seem too worried, and so I tried not to worry, too.
Finally, some good news! Angela was done with chemo, done with radiation, had gotten a scan, and the doctors were sure that the cancer had been eliminated. It was the best news anyone had heard in more than a year, and I was beyond elated that my premonition had been wrong. We had a couple of get-togethers for Angela to celebrate the fact that she had overcome stage IV breast cancer. Her hair had started to grow back, and she was regaining her strength; blue skies were shining once again.
Mary called me to tell me that Angela was back in the hospital. Things were going well for a couple of months, great actually, but then Angela started having trouble writing, and walking, she was unsteady on her feet, and they knew something was wrong. Another scan showed that she had tumors in her brain. The previous scan hadn’t covered her head, or at least that’s what I think I was told, so the doctors didn’t know that the cancer had moved upwards.
I still get angry thinking about this. I still wonder what might’ve happened had the doctors been more thorough the first time around.
Angela went through another surgery, but they could only get to some of the tumors in her head. There was one that was lodged deep in her brain that was too risky to try and cut out. The next time I saw her, she had a large surgical incision with tons of staples running down the side of her head. Her freshly grown hair needed to be shaved for the operation, and it all looked so painful and tragic. I couldn’t think of any quip to say to try and make her laugh, so we just visited for a bit until she needed to rest again.
She called me a couple of weeks after the brain surgery and said, “The doctors have two treatments that might work, but I can only do one of them for the tumor that’s still in there.”
“Okay, what are the options?”
“I can do like a pinpoint radiation that is directly aimed at the tumor, or I can do full-brain radiation that might be more effective. Only problem is that the full-brain one will age my mind by 20–30 years.”
“Damn. What do you think you want to do?”
“I don’t know. Which one would you do?”
“I would probably do the pinpoint one even if it might not be as effective.”
She opted for the full-brain radiation, or maybe her doctors recommended it. By this point, it had been close to three years of fighting. Our texts were becoming few and far between. I remember I took her out for lunch, her bald and scarred head prominently displayed. She needed to use a walker now because she had lost so much strength and mobility.
As we sat there eating cheeseburgers and fries, an elderly Latina woman came up to her and started speaking in Spanish. Angela responded, giggled a little bit, and then spoke a couple more words to the woman.
“What did she say?”
“She asked if I had cancer, and then prayed for me.”
The last time I saw Angela, I came to visit her for a short while because short visits were all she could handle. She was right, the treatment had aged her mind to the point where it was like talking to a person with dementia. I hardly recognized my once vibrant friend as we sat together, her body beat and battered by these supposed lifesaving treatments. There wasn’t anything else to say, and I couldn’t tell her all the things I wanted to for fear that I would burst into tears in front of her. I rationalized that she needed me to be strong for her, so I clenched down my jaw as tight as I could, and dug my nails into my closed fists.
The cancer had spread to her brain and spinal fluid. She was in hospice at her parents home and my only way of getting ahold of Angela was through Mary, who would send me updates. But the time was coming for Angela to leave this earth. The last few texts that I got from her were hard to decipher and incomplete, and eventually, I just didn’t get any responses at all.
I got the call when I was taking a night class while working on my teaching credential. As soon as I looked at the caller I.D., I knew what it was about. During the class break, I went into the hallway and listened to the voicemail. She was gone. I tried to pull myself together as best as I could to tell my professor that I had to leave.
As I got in my car, I sat there for a moment. I took a picture of the sky because Angela was up there now amongst the blue.
This was the photo I took on Sept. 13th, 2011, when I got in my car.
Peering down at Angela, I was in a state of disbelief. Her family had dressed her in her favorite green sweater, the one that I secretly didn’t like, her pink bandana that she took to wearing frequently after she shaved her head, jeans, and her favorite Chucks. Her niece had pulled together a video montage of pictures while “Sweet Child O’ Mine” raged in the background; she fucking loved Guns N’ Roses. I can only listen to half of that song to this day.
The church was packed, and I took comfort in knowing that she had touched so many lives in her 38 years.
I recently visited her grave. I hadn’t gone to visit her since the funeral, which was 13 years ago. As I approached her headstone, I saw that her family had recently come to visit her because there were fresh flowers on her headstone. I sobbed uncontrollably when I saw her headstone because there’s a beautiful picture of her on it. Angela’s long, wavy black hair, and that beaming smile adorn her final resting place. She’s buried next to her father, who passed away some time after her.
It wasn’t until that moment that I allowed myself to say all the things I wished I had been able to say to her when she was still here. I hope she was there by my side at that moment. I hope that she is happy and healthy wherever she is, listening to her favorite band, and knowing that she still lives in my heart.