Toddler

I mean, isn't that always a parent's prayer?

I found out Friday, after some time in the claustrophobic metal container that buzzes and whines and tells you to hold your breath for way too long. There's a bright spot about a centimeter and a half down on my L2 vertebra.

We're calling him Toddler*.

I'm getting a biopsy on Tuesday. The biopsy is to make sure that it really is a Toddler and not a Wayne-ski**.

A Wayne-ski would be a lot worse.

*Toddler = tiny bit of weird gray-zone lymphoma.

**Wayne-ski = tiny bit of hard-as-hell-to-kill renal cell carcinoma.

I'm not going to pretend that this doesn't suck. It does. We set off the equivalent of an H-bomb inside of my body, and there's a bright little cockroach sitting on my spine, waving its antennae at us, saying, Missed me, suckas.

Friendly looking little bugger, ain't he?

So, what did I do to celebrate? I went to a protest.

Look at me, all wearing an N-95 mask and social distancing.

I'm not claiming it was smart. I'm not claiming it was well-thought-out. I'm not claiming anything, actually. I just decided that I had to go. I took my daughter with me. She spent most of the time taking pictures of guys' butts. I am an excellent father, y'all.

I'm forty-nine years old, and this was my first protest. That does not make me proud. I know, I know... focus on the positive, right? But it's not like there hasn't been anything to protest before now. I was just asleep to it all.

Anyhoo, the post isn't about that... but BLACK LIVES MATTER. There.

And now I'm praying to Jesus (who, by the way, is not white) that my spot doesn't end up being too bad, that I find a job, that Breonna Taylor's killers get brought to justice. Man, just can't help myself.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. It's something that's pretty much always been true about me. The older I get, the truer it seems to become. And the less I apologize for it.

I am sensitive. It's true. I cried when I found out about Ahmaud and George and Breonna. I wept when my friend and hero died of ALS. I shed tears when a Native American man stood up and danced at a protest, shouting with his body that it shouldn't be okay to end that body.

I've stopped believing that's a bad thing.

I sometimes wonder if my sensitivity is part of what caused my cancer to grow. It's not really relevant to the fight, but I think about it. My body and spirit are sensitive to the violence done to them. The violence of a world that's been mad a lot longer than I'd care to admit. The violence of ignoring that madness because it didn't affect me personally all that much. The violence I did to myself by trying to tune out, numb out, drown out the noise of hurt that's surrounded me since I was old enough to feel.

I don't know if any of that's true. All I know is that the cancer keeps popping up its head, reminding me that it's still here, that I haven't beaten it yet. And even when I do, I won't be able to trust that for years.

If that.

The other part of this is that going through cancer is almost always selfish. Look back over these paragraphs. How many start with some variation of the word "I?" I'm sick of thinking about myself. My health. My cancer. Me, me, me. I, I, I.

An eye for an I.

Whether or not it's a good thing, I'm fed up. I'm filled to the gills with the worms of self-focus.

My life is not about me. If it were, I would have given this up a long time ago.

So, I'll protest. I'll dance (not very well). I'll cry out when something hurts my soul. I'll work to earn my bread. I'll teach to fill my heart. I'll love with abandon.

I'll sing bad karaoke.

Maybe if I hit all of the wrong notes, my Toddler'll get fed up and just leave.
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Next installment: the vagaries of Skittles flavors. All right, green. Make up your mind already.