everything in transit

i wrote this after watching dear jack a few months ago, the documentary about andrew mcmahon's battle with leukemia. now, i realize today is valentine's day. and i realize this is a bit of a downer. so i'm sorry about that, but i felt like this deserved to be published, as i will be seeing jack's mannequin at the end of this week in kansas city. live shows are always super exciting for me, but jack's mannequin always evokes heightened emotions, and i usually end up shedding some tears. perhaps this is why.

it makes me ache. and it takes me so quickly back to two and a half years ago when that was me, and my family. me and my mom and my dad. it was me in minnesota for a week and a half at the mayo clinic doing the same thing that andrew's sister katie did. i donated my stem cells for a transplant to save my mom. i had the hormone shots twice a day, for seven days. they made my bones produce extra stem cells and it hurt like the strangest pain you'll never understand. it was a dull ache, and it was everywhere.

i remember all the snow on the ground; so high that when we walked on the side walks we couldn't even see the cars on the streets. just me and my dad. my mom was confined to her apartment and hospital bed only. she was allowed to travel nowhere else. but me and my dad freely walked. and i lagged behind. every step made every bone in my body ache and i was exhausted. we went to mall of america. i should have been enthralled by all the stores and clothes and restaurants and roller coasters. but i just wanted to sit. or lay down. or float, rather, because any pressure on any part of my body hurt. i remember all the homework i was supposed to be doing. but didn't. because when your mom has a 105 degree fever and chemo isn't working, you have more important things to worry about. and when you have a tube stuck in your wrist for those seven days, it's hard to hold a pen anyway, because the little thing in your vein rolls around and it hurts too, just like your bones.

i never told anyone back home any of this. if i did, it would have on my xanga... man, those were the days... because what do my complaints mean when my mom is the one in the hospital dying of leukemia? what do my complaints mean when i've been here seven days and she's been here seven weeks? i'm supposed to be the hero. i'm supposed to be the one saving her life. and it didn't work. my cells didn't work. they didn't do their job and leukemia still ravaged her marrow.

i remember the time we went for a visit, the time before she was so terribly sick and could still travel freely around the city. the time before the aching bones and mall of america trips. she was up there alone for a few weeks and had settled into the apartment that was specifically for patients receiving care at the clinic. my dad and i went up so i could have extensive testing done. testing to make sure i was an eligible stem cell donor. after all, they were my cells that were supposed to be taking over my mom's body and giving her a second chance at life. i remember the three of us sitting on the hotel bed together, all holding each other and crying. my mom was terrified and didn't want us to leave her there alone. and i also remember my mom having a particular attachment to the snow patrol song 'chasing cars.' we listened to it together and cried and cried and cried. if i lay here, if i just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world she kept repeating over and over. it was awful. and then we left. and flew back home. my dad would fly back a week later for a month to be with her during all the treatments. and then i was the one left alone.

it was at the same time she had the snow patrol attachment, that i had a jack's mannequin attachment. everything in transit was the soundtrack to all the road trips north, and all the plane flights north, and all the drives in the rental car meandering minneapolis. i had no idea of andrew's bout with leukemia. i had no idea that album was finished the day he was diagnosed. i had no idea that those songs, the ones that comforted me through all those months of utter loneliness, were the songs written by a man who had survived leukemia. it was a coincidence, and looking back, it was an eerie one. because i can't really make a happy comparison of triumphs. but i can look back and have a hint of a smile, even though it's a smile with tears and pain in it too.