Thinking about the past
I’ve been thinking about the past a lot lately.
Little things, mostly — playing Wiffleball in our sloping front yard, imagining the towering maple trees are outfielders and trying to avoid the poison ivy growing in the ditch; helping my brother rebuild an ancient flatbed trailer, shirtless in the summer heat; trying to chop ashes drifting from the burn barrel out of the air as if I was Luke Skywalker wielding a lightsaber.
I remember the smell of Lake Erie and the feel of the mist blowing off of it, moist and pleasant and alive. The extended family would get together there each summer for a fish fry, the kids tiptoeing across the sunbaked sand toward the water’s edge, watermelon juice drying on their faces. We’d go there, too, on the 4th of July. We’d lie on our backs on the steep slope rising up from the beach and watch the skyrockets explode above us, the light reflecting on the water below.
We were little, and the world was big, and death was a word with little meaning.
Now, somehow, we’re big. The world seems smaller. And death is all around.
It’s not just Jim or my brother’s adopted daughter or the almost daily e-mails informing me that relatives of people I work with have died. It’s realizing that my elder siblings are nearly as old now as my father was when he died, and it’s thinking about my mother’s memoir, which one of my sisters compiled and recently mailed to me. I haven’t seen the memoir yet, but it’s got me remembering pictures of my Mom from when she was young and beautiful. The photos are faded black and whites, curled at the edges, and even when I was a child, they seemed old-fashioned.
We’re like that now, my sibs and me. We’ve become boring grown-ups, not running and playing but sitting together in crowded rooms talking about people and times long past. Our parents are gone. We have jobs and responsibilities. All that innocence that infused even the most boring of days with a sense of possibility has dwindled away.
I think of this especially when I talk to LeAnn and Jim’s children, Maddye and Ford. I’m in the midst of writing Chapter 3 of this series, which focuses largely on the kids. And time and again, I find myself comparing my childhood to theirs. For more than half of his life, Ford has shared a home with cancer. Even when Jim didn’t have it, the word was there, hanging over the family like the sword of Damocles. Ford barely remembers a time before cancer.
And Maddye. When I was 17, there was little room for anyone in my life except me. Selfish and childish, I regarded my parents as providers and inconveniences, people controlling my life with rules I didn’t like. Although my dad died just two years later, when I was 19, I rarely regarded him as mortal before then.
Ford and Maddye have always known their father can be hurt.
I wonder sometimes if they have Wiffleball or lakeshore memories — or if their childhoods were so colored by cancer that careless innocence was denied them.
And I wonder — all the time, it seems — how my sibs and I grew so old. In my head, we’re still young and vital. My brother has the trunk popped on his Chevy Nova, and Supertramp is blaring from the 8-track on his Jensen speakers. My oldest sister is there with her husband, hanging out on the porch swing and talking about “The Gong Show,” and my youngest sister has a Dorothy Hamill haircut and a t-shirt covered with a picture of a bassett hound. My middle sister is making a candle inside the kitchen, and I’m outside with a friend, swinging on a rope from one of those maple trees.
Summer was supposed to last forever.
Chapter 2 just went up
Chapter 2 of Jim’s story has just been posted on the “Life is real” main site.
This chapter takes a look at Jim’s life through his poetry and through the eyes of some of the people who know him the best. I think it’s pretty funny, at least in places, but two editors here cried a little when they read it. I think that’s a testament to how touching Jim’s life is and how easy it is to care about him and his family.
Let me know what you think.
LeAnn’s innermost secret revealed!
“So what do you think of Ms. Chastain? Is she a good teacher?”
The middle school girl looked at me shyly, all pigtails and brown eyes. “Yes,” she said, a picture of innocent youth. “She’s my favorite.”
“You’re not just saying that because I might put it in the paper, are you?”
The girl shot me a glance. I couldn’t tell if she was insulted or if she was surprised I’d seen through her little ruse. “No!” she said. “Everybody likes her.”
Yeah, sure, kid. Sell me a bridge while you’re at it.
A few weeks ago, John Clanton and I met up with LeAnn at Whittier Middle School in Norman, where she works as a math teacher. While John kept LeAnn occupied, I quietly interrogated several of her students, trying to ferret out the truth. “Does she call you names? Does she hit you? Has she ever killed anyone in class?” (OK, I didn’t really ask those particular questions. I wanted to, though.)
She’d brainwashed her students well. They all stuck to variations of the same story: We like her. She’s a fun teacher. She’s nice.
About the worst they’d admit is that she gives a lot of homework.
Here’s the deal, boys and girls: I was your age once, and I know how it works. Students and teachers don’t mix. Teachers keep you trapped inside on sunny days. They won’t let you play with your friends, and they force you to learn words like “hypotenuse.” Tell me you like your teacher, and I know you’re jacking with me.
Except … these students didn’t seem to be lying.
In the cafeteria, kids didn’t shrink away from her. She talked to them – not so much as an adult to a child but as an adult to another adult, albeit one who’s 4-feet-tall and eating pudding. In the hallway, students waved at her and smiled as she passed; I turned around to see if they’d throw rude gestures at her back, but none did. Before class, they scurried around her desk, babbling happy metatalk for a few minutes before drifting toward their seats.
During class, it was even worse. The Stepford Children couldn’t wait to participate, raising their hands and leaning out of their chairs in the hope that she’d call on them. They played a math game, some hybrid version of Hollywood Squares (based in Norman and without a single celebrity guest), and some kids actually seemed disappointed when class ended. Disappointed!
The way I see it, there are two possibilities here.
1) LeAnn is a great teacher.
2) LeAnn is a mutant with crazy mind control powers.
I think it’s clear which one is true. Sorry, LeAnn, your secret’s out.
The view from Houston
HOUSTON — I teared up a little today.
So did Jim. And LeAnn.
Jim had an appointment at the M.D. Anderson cancer hospital here. Actually, a couple of them. Yesterday, I accompanied him as he had blood work done and watched from the technician’s consoles as he got a chest X-ray and a CT scan. I saw Jim from the inside out, including the telltale spots and shadows of his cancer.
Jim has been dreading this trip to Houston. In recent weeks, he’s been feeling pain in his lower back, especially toward the right side. It shows up every day and hurts worse when he strains or lifts heavy objects. He’s gotten used to evaluating the signals his body sends him, and usually if something new occurs it’s an indication to him that his condition is worsening.
“I’m not expecting any good news,” he said repeatedly, both back home in Oklahoma and here in Texas.
So we were all bracing for the worst when he met today with Dr. Scott Kopetz. Jim and LeAnn sat on one side of a small examination room, the type you find at pretty much every medical facility in the country. Examination table. Sink. Rolling stool. Desk. Posters on the walls.
John Clanton and I huddled on the other side of the room, trying (in vain) to be unobtrusive as Jim and LeAnn nervously awaited the doctor’s arrival. John snapped photographs and operated a video camera. My audio recorder sat on the desk.
Dr. Kopetz bustled in bristling with efficiency and confidence. He ignored John and me, for the most part, and focused on Jim, asking questions about Jim’s condition and checking his breathing and lower back.
Then he pulled out the documentation from Jim’s tests.
I think we all took a breath. This was it: the big moment. How bad would it be? Had the cancer spread? Were the tumors bigger? Would Jim still have months left or only weeks? How much worse could it possibly get?
But Dr. Kopetz said something utterly unexpected.
Two words.
“Good news.”
Jim’s cancer hadn’t grown. It hadn’t shrunk, either, but it hadn’t gotten worse. The chemo was working; the cancer had stabilized.
It wasn’t miraculous, fantastic, stupendously amazing news. It wasn’t a cure. It wasn’t remission.
Under the circumstances, though, it was about the best news possible … and it was more than good enough.
LeAnn cried quietly as the words struck home — the first time, I think, I’ve ever seen her tears. Jim’s chin quivered.
Watching them, tears filled my eyes, too. I couldn’t help it. LeAnn hides her fear so well, but it was there, evident in the relieved smile that stretched across her face even as she cried. And Jim looked somehow stunned, as if he couldn’t comprehend hearing something that didn’t speak of tragedy.
For once, in this vast stretch of Job-like misery, they’d caught a break. And God, do they deserve it.
Jim will continue the chemo. He won’t come back here for three months. And if things continue like this, he’ll be alive when Maddye graduates from high school in May. Alive and well enough to watch her walk across the stage, to hug her and congratulate her, to see her throw her cap into the air. He’ll be there.
“Good news,” Dr. Kopetz said again a little while later.
Jim replied with a smile: “That’s one in a row.”
Here’s hoping there’s more.
Welcome
I suspect that many new readers will be joining us in a couple of days, when the first chapter in this ongoing series appears in The Oklahoman.
For those newcomers … welcome! I hope you’ll find something here or in the other “Life is real” blogs that touches you, makes you laugh or educates you a little about cancer, life and love.
Here are a few things that might help you get the most of these blogs:
1) Start at the beginning. Go back to the first blog post (there aren’t that many) and read the rest in chronological order. That’ll get you all caught up on everything so far.
2) If you’re looking for the rest of the post that was excerpted in The Oklahoman, it’s the one titled “Why.” (You can find it under “Recent Posts” on the right side of the screen.)
3) None of this would be happening if not for Jim Chastain, his wife LeAnn and their teenaged children, Maddye and Ford. They’ve been kind enough to invite us into their lives as they face some of the scariest stuff possible, so please play nice. I encourage you to post comments on my blog and the others, but remarks that are hurtful toward the Chastains will be removed.
4) Check out some of the links on the main “Life is real” page. You can visit Jim’s personal Web site, listen to Ford’s music, buy Jim’s memoir and poetry books, read additional stories about cancer and more.
That’s about it. Welcome to the site. I hope you’ll come back often.
First chapter should be out this Sunday
I can never guarantee that a story will run on a certain date — this is a newspaper, after all, and you never know when a major news event will cause a feature to be postponed — but the plan is for Chapter One in the Chastains’ saga to appear on Jan 11.
If you like it, thank Jim, LeAnn, Maddye, Ford and their extended family for giving me so much access to their lives. If you hate it, blame me.
This first story centers on Jim’s cancer battle. Later stories, which should appear about once a month, will focus on his biography, his family, his writing and more. I hope you’ll stick with us throughout the series and post comments on the blogs: mine, Jim’s and Charlotte Lankard’s. Photographer and videographer John Clanton would welcome your comments, as well. You can reach him at jclanton@opubco.com.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
I know it’s a couple days early for this post, but I just wanted to wish everyone a great Christmas and a happy New Year — especially the Chastains.
My Christmas wish is that they’ll be able to spend Christmas 2009 together. Jim thinks things will be pretty grim for him by May. Every time he mentions that, I find myself thinking of the old Frank Sinatra song, “Pocket Full of Miracles.”
“I hear sleigh bells ringing
Smack in the middle of May.
I go around, like there’s snow around.
I feel so good it’s Christmas every day.
Lee-ife’s a carousel. Fee-ar as I can tell,
And I’m riding for free.
So if you’re down and out of miracles,
I’ve got a pocketful of miracles,
And there’ll be miracles enough
For you and me.”
If any of you have one of those pockets, now would be a great time to use it.
We’re all all right
People keep asking me if I’m OK.
“Man,” they say, shaking their heads, “I don’t know how you can do this. I couldn’t do it.”
Martyrdom is seductive. There’s a part of me that wants to milk the sympathy for all its worth, and often I acknowledge that yes, it does suck to spend your working hours confronting your greatest fear, to write difficult stories about the worst part of life, to grow close to someone whom you know you’re probably going to lose. It’s tough to see people hurting. Every day brings another heartbreak, and sometimes it feels as if I’ve paid twice the ticket price to watch only the last 10 minutes of a movie.
It’s easier to say that than to slap my inquisitors with the truth: “I’m OK. Jim’s the one who’s dying.”
This blog is about me, I guess, but this story isn’t. No matter how sad the tale is, I can walk away from it. Jim, LeAnn, Maddye, Ford and their extended family can’t. I’m a visitor in their lives, a voyeur of sorts. I’m that guy at a party who just sits in a corner and stares. I’m watching them. They’re living.
And the thing of it is, they’re living well. I think sometimes that if I was in Jim’s shoes, I’d be maudlin and downtrodden, cataloging all the ways in which life let me down. Jim is celebrating whatever time he has left, and his family is right there with him. They don’t drown themselves in tears and embrace nihilism; they’re too busy laughing and bickering and deciding what to have for dinner or which movie to watch. Jim doesn’t have time to wallow in self-pity; there’s too much to do: writing a second book, going to poetry readings, doing his job, visiting friends, paying bills and doing one-handed yard work. There’s a fat house cat to pet, a panting dog to let out.
How am I? Better to ask, how are they?
From the look of it, I’d say they’re OK.
Thank you for asking. I am, too.
Meeting the fam
Haven’t spent as much time with Jim’s family as I’d like to, but I’ve got some early impressions. (Jim will have to correct me here if I’m way off base.)
LeAnn – Jim’s wife, a middle school math teacher, is one of those people whose voice always seems to contain a hint of laughter. It lilts along with her words, making her seem lively and happy. Maybe that’s just the way she is when meeting new people, but I get the feeling she’s enthusiastic a lot of the time. LeAnn is a jogger. Or maybe a runner. I know she has run at least one half-marathon and walked another. Jim says she’s a popular teacher. I’m sure he’s right.
Maddye — Jim and LeAnn’s 17-year-old daughter, Maddye, is a high school senior. I’ve spent less time with Maddye than any of the others, so my impressions of her are really vague. She seems sweet and outgoing. Like her parents and brother, she’s friendly and good looking. I know she’s athletic, because she was a competitive swimmer up until the last year or so, and I know she was involved in some sort of teen drama that led to her family’s house getting T.P.’ed and egged about a month ago. Last I knew, she was trying to decide where to go to college. UCO and OSU were possibilities.
Ford — At 14, Ford is tall, thin and musically gifted. He’s not a fan of homework, but he loves to play his guitar and recently bought a synthesizer. When he was 8, he and some friends started a band called Refuje and put out some CDs. That band split up, and Ford released a solo CD. He writes his own music and most of his own lyrics, although his father helps out from time to time with wording. For a performer, Ford is surprisingly quiet and doesn’t demand the spotlight.
There’s a lot of love in the Chastains’ house. I feel kind of sappy writing that, but it’s true.
Keeping up with the Chastains
It’s a wonder Jim and his family haven’t thrown us out already.
In the past three weeks, photojournalist John Clanton and I have logged a lot of hours with the Chastains — visiting them at their home, meeting them for coffee, attending events with them, going with Jim to medical appointments, etc. Over the weekend, we accompanied Jim and his 14-year-old son, Ford, to a small town in the hill country south of Austin, Texas.
Two of Jim’s poems were published in the Blue Rock Review, an arts journal, and he was invited to read some poems at the journal’s release party. Among the others who performed were OU creative writing professor Nathan Brown and Mac McAnally, who was recently named entertainer of the year at the Country Music Awards.
Jim killed. He read four poems and ended to applause so loud it shook dust from the ceiling.
Tomorrow Jim is going to show us around his office. Must be “Bring Your Stalkers to Work” day at the Capitol.
For more information about the Blue Rock, go to http://events.bluerocktexas.com/previous-events/detail/the-blue-rock-review-volume-iv-friction-release-party/
