My Lumpy Valentine

We’re sitting at the kitchen table, reading the Saturday newspaper amid coffee cups and empty cereal bowls, and enjoying the sunshine coming through the bare branches of our mimosa tree. Across the street, our neighbor is wearing a red t-shirt to hang his Christmas lights. “How very California-Christmasy,” I think. “Too warm for a jacket but he’s got that holiday spirit.”

“So don’t freak out, but they found a lump on my mammogram,” Lori says, watching my face. “The doctor thinks it’s nothing, but they want to do a biopsy. Just in case.”

Against every impulse, my jaw remains clamped shut for ten fragile seconds as I carefully set down my mug of coffee. My neighbor vaporizes before my eyes. I’m grasping for something mature and supportive to say to my sweetie instead of jumping up from the table and screaming. I’m trying very, very hard to not freak out.

I exhale slowly and give her my best “OK, let’s-hear-it” look and ask a few questions about what, when, and where. We smile and reassure each other that there’s no reason to worry. Several years overdue for her first mammogram, I nagged her into scheduling the appointment. Now hazy feelings of culpability mingle with a froth of fear creeping up my throat. I know this lump is not my fault but this road-trip may be scary and painful just the same. And what if it is …something not benign?

The biopsy place is on the far side of a huge medical center. We sit in an unfamiliar waiting room and scan the pinched faces of the men and women staring at bad institutional artwork, waiting their turn to be poked and perforated. Suddenly, after 12 years together, Lori and I find ourselves back in the first weeks of our relationship, joking and gentle, asking instead of assuming, whispering sly comments about cute earlobes and the nurses’ ugly shoes. A nurse calls Lori’s name and steers her into a changing room and I stand in an over-lit hallway, fighting back tears as I look at anything except the posters advertising cancer support groups.

The procedure was brutal but as quick and painless as possible. Waiting for the results was much worse—for me, anyway—but I realized that waiting for bad news is like a lottery ticket in reverse. Instead of imaging the possibilities, you take note of what is real in this moment. Today, as far as I know, I am in perfect health. That could change tomorrow with a single phone call. Today, my neighbor is standing on a ladder, hanging his Christmas lights, and I marvel at all that he has: agility, mobility, appetite. Oh yes, and the desire to celebrate the holidays.