Necklace of Memories

Thinking today about a couple I got to know years ago (thanks to Grady Doctor for reminding me of them today.)

My first job out of graduate school was at a major national cancer center, and I also volunteered there once a week. I would go in every Thursday evening, check in at the office, and then head up to the leukemia/lymphoma floor. I had a cart stocked with magazines and toiletries and other things to help make the patients' stay a little easier or more pleasant, and my job was to go door to door through the floor with it. I quickly found that not very many of the patients wanted anything from the cart, but almost all of them were happy to have company for a little while. I think many just wanted to have a conversation about something other than their illnesses.

Since these patients were usually receiving inpatient chemo and there for at least a few days to a week at a time, they all had nameplates by their doors. These nameplates also usually listed where the patients were from. A significant number had traveled a long way for their treatments.

One evening, I was surprised to see a familiar (and distant) hometown on one of those nameplates. It is a suburb of the city in which my parents were born, and I mentioned that when I went in to say hello. The patient and his wife were wonderful people, and I was always happy to see his name on the door in subsequent weeks when I was back on the floor (even though in perfect circumstances it would have been great if he had been cured, never to return.) We had lovely conversations each time I saw him, and on one visit his wife gave me a pewter snowflake ornament made in their family business. They had brought a supply to give to "special" people at the hospital, as they put it. I was beyond honored to receive one of these. I put it front and center on my Christmas tree every year.

A few months after receiving the ornament, I changed jobs and moved to another state. To my deep regret, I did not get a chance to say goodbye to this couple before I left. I sincerely hoped that they had not come in because he was doing well.

A year or two later, my mother visited their pewter factory during a trip back to her hometown. She bought me a pendant there, which I am wearing today. I think of them every time I put it on. I hope and pray that things worked out well for these two good people, although I will never know.

Cancer is a bitch.