The
Cancer,
The
Chemo, and
The Chrysalis
With a Little Bit of O’Henry
It wasn’t
emerald green, more a milky wedding mint green, but its faceted shape and
closure of gold gave the monarch chrysalis the appearance of a gem. She spied
it hanging from the tomato cage she used to support the Cuphea in the flowerbed. A beetle infestation made it necessary to
trim the cuphea to a height of only a few inches, so the chrysalis was visible,
unlike the majority of them. Most are hidden until the appointed time at which
a monarch appears in all its majesty: A Monarch incubated in a jeweled case—how
fitting is the name!
Environmental
threats have diminished the monarch population in the United States, in
particular the indiscriminate spraying of herbicides—weed killers that have
destroyed much of the monarch larvae’s primary food—milkweed. Knowing this and
encouraging the population in her yard—she planted milkweed and kept the supply
going by planting more seeds and always leaving the new plants wherever they
sprouted. Abundant flowers of several other varieties contributed to the
nourishing nectar for the butterflies as they visited her yard.
Awareness
of the cycles and seasons of the plant life around her tendered a deeper
consciousness within her of the monarch lifecycle: the butterflies performing
their mating dance and ritual; the female monarchs laying eggs on the milkweed,
the emergence of thread-sized larvae; the “hungry caterpillar” stage as the
larvae feasted on the milkweed, decimating it, stripping it to bare sticks
devoid of foliage, all the while plumping their bodies to store the nutrients
they would need during their transformation—their metamorphosis from larvae
into royalty. Leaves stripped, the chrysalis-ready larvae lumber off and find a
twig—or a wire tomato cage—hang upside down, and spin until they’re encased in
a jeweled urn.
She
knew all the steps of the transformation, yet she continued to be caught in the
thrill of observing it. This latest chrysalis was in full view, providing an
unusual, yet exciting, opportunity to keep track of the process—to be aware of
each phase, to mark the days until the transformation was complete.
Transformations
aren’t limited to the life of flora and fauna. Transformations—welcome as well
as unwelcome—also are an aspect of the human experience. Sharing those
transformations, or at least being aware of them, are yet another part of being
human. While she gardened, her heart was troubled by another transformation of
which she was aware. Her children’s seventeen-year-old second cousin was
diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the autumn. Quirky, artistic, zany,
wise-beyond-her-years are just a few limited adjectives to describe the cousin’s
esoteric personality. She and the cousin had seen each other only once in
recent years, but when she last saw the young woman, she had experienced a
connection unlike most in the transient nature of relationships in our mobile,
fractured society.
Geographic
distance meant the connection would be continued only through Facebook, but she
watched as the teen experienced some teenage love, teenage angst, and shared
her soul as she spent time at school, at camp, and with her family.
Of
course, it’s always difficult when someone receives a cancer diagnosis and it’s
never what one will imagine will be part of their teenage experience. The
honesty the teen expressed about her illness was striking—raw, intense. To
see—read those emotions expressed was different from the woman’s previous
experience with childhood cancer. When her own daughter was diagnosed and
treated in the mid-1980s, such raw, intense observations during the course of a
life-threatening illness were limited to the spoken word—in conversations both
in person and over the telephone. The urgency of the day-to-day experience
didn’t lend itself to letters, and social media did not exist, so rather than a
broad swath of emotions and reactions being shared, those emotions and
reactions had little to no audience. It was a more introspective time—although
the rawness and grief and despair were similar.
What
was/is even more different was the cousin’s cancer isn’t rare. Unlike the
woman’s daughter, this teen’s medical team had a protocol to follow—one that
demonstrated cures. The odds are in her favor—not that those make the disease
and its ramifications any less frightening or threatening.
Remission
is the trill of the songbird, the first crocus in March, the burst of green in
an opening spring leaf. It was a word the woman never heard during her child’s
illness. It was a condition never experienced, because her child died.
Carrying
the weight of her child’s death made it difficult to cross the threshold of
silence toward the teen, who being a family member was aware of that loss.
However, the woman’s experience in life as well as on Facebook had taught her
an important lesson: When someone reaches out, it is a plea for those who
receive that message to take that person’s hand, hold it, grasp it, use it to
support, enlighten, soothe, cherish.
Who
among us has so little heart that they refuse the hand beseeching one’s
grasp—to hold them, to carry them?
So,
reach out she did and began a measured dialogue: one that was met with love and
gratitude. She sent her teen friend encouragement and flower photos.
When
she spied the jewel dangling from the tomato cage, she knew it was ideal: The
teen was nearing the end of her chemotherapy and soon would emerge from
treatment. Who knew what life would be or become for her once she broke through
the confines of that treatment—broke through the chrysalis enfolding her?
The
woman believed the timing of the chrysalis appearance was fortuitous. She took
a photo and sent it with a message wondering what the amazing girl would show
us after she, too, emerged.
Just
as she knew that not all cancer patients emerge from treatment, the woman also
knew from observing the jeweled cases in her yard that not every chrysalis is
successful at incubating a monarch. Disease and insects and other distresses of
the natural world mean that some larvae do not complete the transformation—some
chrysalises turn dark and wither and yield nothing but dismay.
So,
she watched the chrysalis over the next few weeks with increasing hope that
this one would transform and become a Monarch. One of those January weeks
ushered in an unusual bout of cold weather, including morning freezes. She
debated covering the chrysalis with a blanket, much as she had often covered
tender plants before a frost. Experience had taught her, however, that often
her interference—meddling—had led to less-than-favorable results both in and
out of the garden, so she left the chrysalis alone.
When
temperatures returned to the winter norms for her Central Florida home, she was
relieved to see the chrysalis still dangling from the cage, still green, still
in its phase of suspended animation.
She
continued to watch and wait. Close-up, she could see the chrysalis begin to
darken as the monarch took shape. Hues of orange began to hint their presence.
She anticipated the moment of emergence, certain she would be there to observe.
She planned to share the experience with the young woman.
One
morning she observed the chrysalis from a distance of several feet. It was
solid black, opaque. Black as death—black as the death of numerous chrysalises
she had mourned in the past. She turned away, feeling despondent, experiencing
an unwelcome wave of superstition and dread. What would she now have to share
with the young woman? There was no way she would share the blackness—there was
no way she would risk unbalancing the fragile health and psyche of the teen.
Knowing
she was putting too much of a negative interpretation on the black chrysalis,
and the black thoughts that had intruded on her conscious awareness, she made
the effort to redirect her thoughts—and failed.
Knowing
she would never share the fate of the chrysalis, but at the same time knowing
she didn’t want to ignore the end result or even have the young woman think the
transformation didn’t happen, she decided on an alternate plan.
In
the style of O’Henry’s “The Last Leaf,” she decided to find another spent
chrysalis and photograph it. It would be the “last leaf” painted on the
windowpane. She already had captured numerous photos of monarchs in their
just-emerged state of plumping their wings before taking flight.
There
would be no disappointing sharing of a blackened chrysalis pod—she would never
engender that sort of despair in someone else. She would keep the loss and
mournful fate of the black chrysalis to herself. She would not exactly lie—but
she would create an alternate outcome—O’Henry style.
An
O’Henry-style outcome would facilitate hope: The leaf stays visible, the young
woman survives her pneumonia. The monarch emerges, resplendent, plumps its
wings, and flutters off to drink nectar, pollinate flowers, mate, lay eggs: The
life cycle would continue. The young woman, too, would emerge from the
hospital, her treatment a success, the cancer in remission and her life would
continue, changed like that of the caterpillar into a monarch, but now
beautiful, alight—aflight and free.
The
O’Henry narrative was much more inspiring and soothing—replete with hope and promise.
She
turned her eyes and heart away from the once-jeweled, now blackened urn,
determined in her resolve to create the happily ever after scenario we all
crave.
Several
hours later, her workday ended, the woman returned to the garden. She wanted to
resist another glance at the chrysalis, but her eyes were drawn to it as if it
were the hypnotic sway of a pendulum. She couldn’t see it from where she stood,
so she walked closer, expecting to see a blackened remnant on the nearby
ground. She did not. Instead, she saw the transparent chrysalis hanging from
the tomato cage. Her heart soared as she remembered that at the last phase of
metamorphosis, the chrysalis would be clear and unless one were close enough,
all that would be visible would be the folded black wings of the monarch just
before it moved between worlds. The dark mass she saw earlier that day showed
the butterfly’s wings, ready to burst forth, and not a black chrysalis. Relief
spread throughout her heart. Continuing to be superstitious, she interpreted
this as the best-possible sign for not only the emergence of the monarch, but
also for the emergence of the teen. Perhaps she, too, would now spread her own
wings and venture into a transformed life.
She
checked the area close by to see whether any monarchs were in a post-emergent
stage of pumping and plumping their wings—filling them, readying to fly, but
she saw none.
A
short time later as she sat musing on her patio, a monarch flew near her,
fluttered its wings as if to be certain it was observed—and perhaps even
recognized—and then it left. Monarchs flit throughout her yard, but this was
the first time she’d seen one on the patio.
As
happens on social media, sometimes a person steps away—and the woman stepped
away during those cold January weeks as she observed the chrysalis. In early
February, she once again signed on and began the familiar motions of scrolling
and reading and scrolling and reading—and then she stopped at an announcement:
The young woman was in remission—a successful twin metamorphosis had occurred.
“Ah,”
the woman sighed, smiling through tears and recalling her decision to create a
“last leaf.” As it turns out, neither the young woman nor the caterpillar
needed her intervention, and she got her heart’s desire for now—a happily ever
after.
The full text of O’Henry’s story “The Last Leaf” can be found here. https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the-last-leaf.pdf
