Presence

In the silence I hear so many things.  The constant spinning of the eight IV pumps, one of which senses a false occlusion at least twice an hour.  She doesn't even stir at the noise.  The clicking of the suction, turning itself on every 20 seconds.  The shallow, gasping rattle of my friend's breathing and the twitching of her hand in mine as she rests so fitfully.  The overnight nurses - the wonderful, compassionate nurses - come to take her blood sugar every hour and to reposition her every two.

I'm padding around the unit in my pajamas here on 4B at the University of Minnesota - the adult bone marrow transplant unit.  It feels so unusual and out of character, seeing as I'm usually here in an ugly uniform with a squawking radio at my belt.  The blinding lightning and the steady rumble of the thunder here in the Cities tonight give voice to a different sort of storm, the one going on in my heart.  On April 5th, I sat in a chair on this unit and watched a bag of stem cells begin to slowly stream down Sharon's PICC line and into her body.  A brand new immune system donated by a 28 year old man who lives in an undisclosed location, somewhere here in America.  I don't think any of us even breathed as we watched new life begin to infuse itself into her body.  Simply astounding.  Who first imagined such a possibility, to save one life with a single bag of cells from another?

We never imagined what is happening now - Grade 4 GVHD.  Last time was so different.  I couldn't be here the first time Sharon received a bone marrow transplant in December of 2008, and I've felt terribly that I couldn't be available to help with her care in the days that followed. Despite the chaos life has been lately, it's so fitting - almost ordained - that my own life has arranged itself in such a way that I can be present this time. Just a month ago, a friendship which took up a large piece of my heart-space ended for a second time. In the same week, I wrote three papers, two finals, and graduated from college. In the same week again, I participated in a mock crash and gave a presentation on my experience of trauma and loss, which was a very empowering ending in my life. All of this happened the same week that Sharon's course started to turn.

I have felt confused, overwhelmed, torn, heartbroken, overjoyed, furious, and numb over the last month.  So much has come into perspective for me.  Having brought my experience back into awareness, I remember so nearly what it was like to lie helpless, in terrible pain, needing someone to attend to my every need, and yet I wouldn't pretend to be able to imagine the kind of suffering that I witness now.  I know now how my parents and friends felt, so often able to do nothing but hold my hand, stroke my head, and tell me they loved me. 

Once upon this long time ago, Sharon was a social worker who specialized in hospice and grief care.  She was the facilitator of the grief support group that I attended for a year and a half; only several months after my need for her services ended did we become friends.  The irony is not lost on me, that it is the very hand I hold that once helped me learn how to navigate these painful and overwhelming feelings.  Although we've lived together for a summer and I've traveled across the world to spend time with she and her husband in Italy, we've never been big on touch.  Now, to my surprise and gladness, it is the greatest comfort she says I have to offer.  During an uncomfortable procedure last week, when I asked her how being touched was for her, through her dry, cracked lips she found the strength to utter one word: "helpful."  On Monday, being mindful of her pain, I asked again if it was ok, and she offered a single beautiful phrase:  "It's wonderful."  I rest my hand on the soft, new tufts of hair on her bald head and tell her I love her; unimaginably, she finds the strength to return the words:  "Love you." 

Shortly after her AML diagnosis, I sat with her on the oncology unit at Regions Hospital as she received her first round of chemotherapy, and on that day she asked me if I would sing for her. I couldn't bring myself to do it; I choked up at the thought.  Instead, with a producer friend's help, I recorded a four-song CD for her. I wrote then that I couldn't imagine how something so intangible, something that was so simple, so "me," could be a comfort.  I also couldn't imagine offering myself that way, to be so truly vulnerable.  No way could I be enough.

We've been invited this week to start spending the night.  Tonight is my first night here with her, and although it's late, and although I'm still scared, I want to be singing to her. Sometimes it feels as if my heart might explode for how much it aches. I give her sips of water when she wakes enough to ask.  I apply the organic, ultra conditioning lip balm that I brought for her.  I hold her hand as she suffers through such discomforts and indignities - and I wonder how on earth I ever thought that I was afraid to be vulnerable.  I pray, in remembrance of the comfort my mother once offered to me in this way and as I have so many times before for my friend, for God to let my friend feel the strength, courage, and love pouring out from my heart, down my arm and through my hand, that she might draw these things out from my body and into her own.  I will for God to push to infection out of her body, to let me take some of the suffering from her.  I am reminded, now, that so often this is the sole but greatest comfort we can offer each other: to remain present, even in silence, and to offer the whole of our love - even if only with a hand.