Chapter 16

Last year Diana was diagnosed with cancer. The surgeons removed a breast and a kidney, but it was too far advanced. She tried various alternative cures, from sleeping on magnets, to eating apricot kernels, to Filipino touch healers. With each one we had a burst of optimism, then a slump back into despair. Finally she came to accept that she had only a few months to put her life in order.

So began the terminal time, a countdown to a death that seemed to be as much mine as hers. She had aged rapidly under the disease and treatments and had less energy. She grew smaller, more birdlike.

I had to force myself to breathe normally rather than in rapid gasps; the air seemed to drain from whatever room I was in. I felt a panicky need to hold on to her. After having given me life, she had become life to me. One part of me was convinced I couldn't live without her, another part knew I could learn to but it would be agonizing.

Diana's agony was severe until she found a doctor liberal with morphine. "I never thought I'd end up a junkie," she said, "but what the hell—it's better than climbing these green hospital walls."

Her anxiety was also severe until she had a vision of afterlife. "I was meditating, and I saw all these glowing forms ... like people but made of light. Their bodies had died, but they were alive, lying still ... floating ... but alert. And the light was their divine energy ... they were healing themselves with it. All the pain and suffering of their past were dark blotches on them ... stains. They moved the light in ... and just shone them away ... until they were clear again. I knew ... deep down I knew that when they were all shining and ready, they'd be born again in a new body. They'd come back for another cycle ... a fresh start ... until all their desires are fulfilled ... and then they're enlightened. It's a great circle, a beautiful round we all go on." Her arthritic fingers stroked my hand. "And I could tell that in our next life our love will draw us together again. We'll be about the same age ... and have children." Tears rolled out of her eyes. "I'd love to have your baby."

"That sounds wonderful," I said. "I can't wait. Then we can stand up in front of the world ... without having to worry about it crushing us." I gazed at that face I'd loved all my life. "This has been tough ... but it was all we could do."

"And we did it pretty well."

"And quite often," I added, leaning over and kissing her wizened cheek.

Diana squeezed my hand, but frailly. "This could've been a tragedy," she said slowly. "Instead it was a wonderful life-long ... love affair. Thank you, my dear son and husband." She gave me a V sign.

"Thank you, my dear mother and wife." I kissed from her cheek down to her lips, and rested my hand lightly on her breast. "I still want to know what's between your buttons. Let me kiss it again."

She gave a wan but willing smile. "So you still want this old body that bore you?"

"Yes, indeed. It bore me, but it's never bored me."

Mom tugged at her hospital gown. "Unfortunately these damned things don't have buttons. They don't have bottoms either." She looked around to make sure we were alone.

I pulled the screen around the bed in case a nurse blundered in, then undid the ties in the back of the blue gown and helped her slip half way out of it. Keeping the scarred side covered, she pulled the cloth away to reveal her breast, sagging, webbed with tiny lines, beautiful, still graceful in its softness. The nipple looked the same as it ever had: a bold, reddish-brown fountain of bliss. I sat by her bed and took it gently between my lips and kissed and sucked. The breast was smaller now, so I could get almost all of it into my mouth. The same ambrosia as fifty years ago flowed into me, calming me, making me whole.