I’m only going to say this once: I’m totally legal, I’m a citizen! No one’s getting deported. What we’re doing is getting DE-ported.
This post is about Peyton.
July 14, 2006 saw us here
Peyton looking petrified and me trying my best not to. That was the bed that she laid in as they wheeled her away to surgery…”We’ll take good care of her, Mrs. Mayhew.”
Ummm, what do you say to that?
“You freaking better!!”
“Thank you.”
“I have your first AND last name and I can find out where you live.”
“Would you mind just going ahead and cutting off my hand and taking it with you so that she can hold onto it? No, no, it’s ok, I don’t need it. I don’t care about your sterile field….just TAKE IT!”
I don’t remember what I said. I remember her holding onto the tips of my fingers until the last moment they pulled her away…her eyes locked on mine. I stayed there and waved and smiled until the door swung shut and everything in me crumbled and wanted to die.
We’d known she had cancer for less than twenty-four hours at that point and there she went…off to be cut open…off to put in a contraption with a purpose I didn’t understand…off to the next staggering change in our lives.
At that moment, leaning against the wall so I wouldn’t fall to the floor, feeling like my chest might burst wide with the screams that wanted to come out, I couldn’t comprehend that we’d ever come to a day like this.
We’ll be in that same room today.
She’ll probably be in a nearly identical bed.
She’ll hold my fingertips until we can no longer reach.
I’ll wave and smile as she’s taken away.
And although I’ll feel a little sick, knowing what’s about to happen to her, I’ll know that the next time I see her she’ll just be Peyton…whole, healthy, port-free and a cancer survivor.
It truly doesn’t feel real.