Tapestry of Grief

It’s September 14th, 2006. I’m at my veterinarian’s office as the dreaded words come out of his mouth, “she may have cancer – cancer of the spleen.”  I look at Shen, my 11-year-old collie/shepherd mix. She looks healthy, vibrant even. How could she possibly have cancer? Over the past month she has had occasional episodes of lethargy, weakness and loss of appetite.  I’ve been on a seesaw of emotions as contradictory and inconsistent test results have come back from the time I took her in to be checked out “just to be on the safe side.” My vet shared with me the possibility that at the very early stages, these inconsistent results, the deep lethargy quickly followed by what appears to be a full recovery and normal behavior, are indicative that she may have a mass in her spleen.  On my drive to the vet’s office that morning, Shen sat on the passenger seat, as she always does, resting comfortably while peeking out of the corner of her eye to ensure I was still there. Traffic lights along the way were a welcome chance to give Shen extra pats of love, as she responded with kisses on my hand. We talked that morning, as we always talked, on car rides, one of our shared joys in life. The difference this morning was that her brother Shadow, a 36 pound black lab/pit mix, wasn’t stepping all over her as he insisted on looking out the windows. This morning, Shadow remained at home.

I adopted Shen when she was 9 months old. A pet adoption event was taking place at a PetSmart in St. Louis, MO, when I planned to run in, grab some dog food, pay, and head home. Instead, I walked past Shen and her sister. Shen was skinny and scrawny with an endearing, awkward way about her. Her name at the time was Emily. Her foster said Emily’s sister had found an adopter and would be going home soon. She had been bringing Emily to adoption events for months and couldn’t understand why no one wanted her. Thirty minutes later, I was filling out the adoption paperwork and scheduling a home visit. I stopped at Whole Foods on my way home and opened a book at the front of the store, Four Paws Five Directions: A Guide to Chinese Medicine for Cats and Dogs. I needed to name the soon-to-be new addition to the family. I opened the book to a page with the subtitle Shen. I learned that Shen means Spirit in Chinese. Shen—THAT was her name! Her demeanor had a depth I couldn’t describe. My Papa’s family was from mainland China, and it felt fitting to give this skinny, scrawny, awkward, and beautiful collie/shepherd mix a name that connected her to my Papa’s homeland and my ancestral roots. Over the years, her spunky side emerged, but today, there was no spunk in Shen. My vet called the University of Minnesota Small Animal Hospital for an urgent referral to get Shen in for an ultrasound.

September 14, 2006, would’ve been my Papa’s 77th birthday if he were still alive. As I drove to the University of Minnesota with Shen, I felt like I was in a time warp, returning to December 20th, 1968—Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. I had just turned 4. That Friday afternoon, I lost my father. The city known for the St. Louis Arch, gateway to the West, took my Papa away—gateway to heaven. To my mom, it was the gateway to hell.

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It’s Friday afternoon, December 20th, 1968 and the hospital PA system is playing Christmas music. It’s five days before Christmas, a day to honor, reflect, and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Or, to a four year old, a day in hopeful anticipation of Santa arriving with Christmas presents. He arrived the year prior with Papa and Mama watching me as I gleefully ripped wrapping paper off of large boxes. I’m sure Santa had trouble transporting from the North Pole. Santa traveled a long way to make the trip from the North Pole to Bangkok, Thailand where I lived in bliss with Papa. Somehow, this year, something felt very different.

I am sitting in the corner of a room at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri. In October, 1968 my mom was told by doctors in Thailand, “your husband is dying – there’s nothing we can do.”  Papa resisted going to the doctor for months. “ I feel fine,” he insisted as he continued to lose weight. One day my mom noticed the color of his skin changing – there was a yellowish tint to his skin and the whites around his eyes were turning yellow. “Whether you like it or not, you are going to the doctor!” my mom tells my father. He quietly concedes. After a series of tests, my mother hears words she never imagined she would hear, “your husband is dying.” We travel halfway across the world to St. Louis, Missouri. It’s been two months since we arrived, and every morning, my mom and I would spend the day in Papa’s hospital room. My mom’s brother lives in Godfrey, Illinois, and tells us Barnes Hospital has great doctors and maybe they can save him. My mom, desperate, is willing to try anything so she brings our family to St. Louis – my dying father, my 7 year old brother and my 5 year old sister. 

Outside the hospital window I see a huge stainless steel arch in the distance – the St. Louis Gateway Arch. My father is lying quietly on his bed while I play with my Etch a Sketch. Over the hospital intercom system plays “Little Drummer Boy” – “come they told me, pa rum pa pum pum ….”. My mother is sitting by my father’s side. She’s talking to him. There’s no response. My mother has placed a rosary in his hand and has been praying non-stop for weeks. As I watch my mother lean over and into my father, my father’s grip loosens. The air in the room comes to a standstill. My mother runs out of the room into the hallway. I hear her frenzied, desperate, quivering voice say to my father “There is no light. There is no light. Don’t follow the light.” Years later, she tells me “Your Papa asked me that morning what’s that shining light I see? It’s so beautiful.” She said he looked so peaceful. She also acknowledged she knew in her heart it was God’s way of telling her the time had come. Yet how could the God she had placed her faith and unwavering trust in turn her back on her now? How could she accept that the love of her life was being taken from her?

She tells my Papa there is no light as she frantically shut the blinds. Moments later, the cross breaks loose from the rosary my mom placed in my Papa’s hand, and falls to the floor. “The chain of life has broken,” she tells me. “I knew God was taking your Papa away. I was so angry with God. I was so angry with your Papa. How could God take your Papa from me? From you? How could your Papa leave us?”

In minutes, my father’s hospital room is filled with doctors, nurses and machines. My mother’s cries continue to echo and vibrate in a time tunnel connecting us and cementing me to that moment when my father’s soul left his body. The stench of stale air mingled with ethanol stings my nose, a harsh reminder that life itself was slipping away. Is this the smell of death? Does time stop – the frames of our life’s movie frozen. Only I am sure my mother wishes the frames could’ve frozen years earlier, maybe even the first moment my father laid eyes on her – it was a moment a decade earlier, when they were both in graduate school at Indiana University and a mutual friend introduced them at a dinner party. My father had traveled from Bangkok, Thailand to the small town of Bloomington, Indiana; and my mother from Manila, Philippines. “I remember your Papa that night. He didn’t say much. Quiet. Humble. Handsome. Oh yes, very handsome. And he always smiled.”

 “No, no. Don’t take him from me.” She grabs the cross off of the pale beige floor, clasps it in her hands, and cups her hands over my father’s left hand. She pushes the cross in the palm of his hand and wraps his fingers over it. She won’t let go. The nurses gently wrap their arms around my mother and ask her to wait outside. She won’t let go. “There is no light. There is no light. You have to stay with us. You promised me you would,” she wails.

I don’t remember how long it was. I sat in my corner not understanding what was happening. The beat of the Christmas carol “Little Drummer Boy” playing in the background. Not long after the nurses escorted me out of my father’s room, the beat of my father’s heart stopped. He was 39 years old. His death certificate reads: “Cause of death: liver disease.”

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At the University of Minnesota hospital an ultrasound confirms that Shen has a golf ball size tumor in her spleen. The doctors suspect cancer.  I am thrown into the hellish vortex of cancer.  The only way we can confirm cancer, and the extent of how far it has spread, is through surgery.  No guarantees. In fact, I am told, “She’s dying. Any surgery would be palliative. You may get a couple more weeks with her, maybe three, if you’re lucky.”  My head is spinning; my heart is burning. I am not ready to say goodbye. Just days ago she was acting like her usual self.  Today, life has been drained from her like a tornado ripping through a town, demolishing and flattening what was once a living, breathing community. Today, there’s heaviness in my heart – an all-consuming tightness. It’s as if tentacles of an octopus have latched onto my heart, with their suction cups working tirelessly to drain the remaining life out of me. I am drowning, yet expected to make a decision on her “fate.”  In that moment, I realize the desperation, the helplessness, the searing injustice—these are the same emotions my mother must have felt that December afternoon in 1968 when my father, a mere 39 years of age, was ripped from her, just as Shen was being ripped from me. I decide I have to try. Maybe, just maybe the cancer hasn’t spread beyond her spleen. I pray I can have even one more week with her. I opt for surgery. Surgery is scheduled for the next morning. 

I didn’t sleep at all. I held Shen all night and I asked my Papa to give me strength, to watch over Shen in surgery. Friday, September 15th, 2006. It’s a sunny, crisp fall morning in St. Paul, Minnesota. I arrived with Shen at the University of Minnesota small animal hospital. Two days ago she was full of life.  That morning, I lifted her 47 pound body into the passenger seat of my 2004 burnt orange Honda element, a vehicle I purchased, certainly not for its looks, but for the functionality and ease of transporting our dogs. Her eyes had always pierced my soul.  Her eyes, a window, not into her soul, but into mine. In a daze, I made the drive down Jefferson Avenue to University Avenue, turned right onto Raymond Avenue early Friday morning.  “Is this her last car ride with me?  Is this it?  Is this goodbye?” As they wheel her off to surgery I give her a kiss and a big hug. I whisper to her “I’ll be here, waiting for you.  If you choose to move on, I’ll be okay.” The surgeon assures me she is not suffering.  If we discover the cancer has spread, we can make the decision to humanely let her go while she is still “sleeping.” 

In that moment, I realize the desperation, the helplessness, the searing injustice—these are the same emotions my mother must have felt that December afternoon in 1968 when my father, a mere 39 years of age, was ripped from her, just as Shen was being ripped from me. 

I pace the hallways – waiting and hoping.  Outside the hospital – it’s sunny and feels like spring.  I pray for strength, wisdom and courage to do what is best for Shen, not what’s easy or comforting to me. The doctor comes out.  She’s wearing blue scrubs; her face carrying a somber look. Softly, she says, “The cancer has spread.  Shen is losing a lot of blood. We have done one blood transfusion. She is stable now. We need to remove a large tumor that has formed in and around her liver.”  Since it will be awhile, the vet recommends we go home.  They will call when the surgery is over and we can come back to visit her.

It’s been a long day.  We heed the vet’s advice and head home to wait for news with our other dog Shadow. Not along after we got home, the phone rings. Our caller ID indicates it’s the University of Minnesota hospital. It’s way too soon for them to be calling.  “Is this Marilou?” the voice on the other end asks.  “Yes.”  Nervous silence fills the air.  “Shen’s condition is far worse than we anticipated. The cancer has spread. She’s losing blood. She needs another blood transfusion.” At that moment, in my head, someone hit the pause button on the DVD player. The frame freezes: “she’s losing blood; we need your permission…. She’s losing blood, we need your permission” plays over and over again. In the background, the rhythmic, powerful beats of bachi sticks on taiko drums, vibrate and beat the message, “It’s time Marilou. It’s time.”

Shen wasn’t the one clinging to life – I was.  Papa wasn’t the one holding on – my mother was. 

Shen wasn’t the one clinging to life – I was.  Papa wasn’t the one holding on – my mother was. At four years of age, I sat perplexed in the corner of the hospital room, unable to grasp the chaos and desperation that engulfed the air. Doctors and nurses rushed to my Papa’s room, as hospital staff wrapped their arms around my mother, as she screamed and cursed the God above for savagely ripping from her, the love of her life. I felt my mother in me and her unbearable pain. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. 

I make it back to the University of Minnesota in time to hold her, as her spirit, wrapped in mine, is set free. I wrap my hands around Shen’s paw as the doctor inserts the needle into her vein. My heart can’t hold the pain. I try to be strong for Shen and whisper “I love you sweet girl. Always. Papa will be there to greet you.” Her chest rises for the last time, and with that final breath, I collapse over her body. I close my eyes and breathe in her spirit, as tears of denial and defiance roll down my cheeks.  The 4 year old wants to go with Shen. The 4 year old doesn’t understand.  

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The melody, rhythm, and beat of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ are etched into my memory, woven into the very fabric of my being—a thread binding my grief across time. On Friday, September 15, 2006, at 3 PM—a part of me died while I buried my face in Shen’s body, clinging desperately to what was now an empty shell, as her spirit, like my Papa’s, was set free. Like my mother 38 years before, I wanted to wail at the sheer injustice of it all.

Thirty-eight years earlier, with “Little Drummer Boy” playing over the hospital intercom, the drumbeat faded into the distance as my Papa’s spirit departed—Friday, December 20th, 1968, at 3 PM. My mother, a devout Catholic, shared with me years later that Jesus Christ died on a Friday at 3 PM. “Your Papa died on a Friday at 3 PM. They are together now,” she said, finding comfort in that connection.

My grief was woven into an invisible thread, a tapestry I had been unable to see until this moment. The 4-year-old in me met the 42-year-old –  holding hands in the same time-warped melody.

As Shen’s spirit departed her body, I felt an undeniable connection to my Papa’s passing. Both occurred on a Friday at 3 PM, decades apart. Though not religious, the symmetry of these moments offered me surprising solace. A synchronicity that transcended coincidence.  A symphony of grief began to play—a haunting melody as poignant as Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” underscored by the slow, syncopated beat of “Little Drummer Boy.” My grief was woven into an invisible thread, a tapestry I had been unable to see until this moment. The 4-year-old in me met the 42-year-old –  holding hands in the same time-warped melody. As the notes and beats began to fade into the distance, I couldn’t help but wonder if, in that sacred hour, something greater was at play—if the music, the steady beat, was guiding their spirits home.

The beat endures, an eternal rhythm echoing through time and space. Making music, weaving threads from memories both conscious and buried, and binding past and present in a symphony of loss and love. A new tapestry is being created.