Quick Take
Two weeks before Christmas, Lookout columnist Claudia Sternbach learned her husband, Michael, has cancer. They spent the holiday waiting to learn the treatment plan, which doctors will tell them this week. “We cling to each other in disbelief,” she writes. “This was not the plan” for 2024.
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Waiting. From childhood on we are taught patience. We are encouraged to “wait our turn.” We are advised not to start counting chickens until the eggs are hatched. We are taught to wait.
We wait for buses. We wait until our flight is called. We wait in line for overpriced coffee. We wait in line to fill our cars with gas. We wait to hear if we’ve gotten the job, or lost the job.
We wait for the perfect wave, the perfect set, and appreciate the ride all the more for the time spent anticipating it.
We have just come out of a holiday season when children everywhere, at least the lucky ones, had to wait until Christmas morning to see what their stockings held.
For the most part, the older I get, the less I mind waiting. I realize time will pass and we will get to our destination no matter what it might be. We are all floating down life’s river. As a child I wanted the river to run fast and hard so I might see what is around the next bend. As a woman in her 70s, I want calm waters and a slow drift. I am in no hurry to see where the river ends.
Over the past few weeks, my husband, Michael, and I have been waiting. He, after waiting 40 years to retire, was diagnosed with cancer two weeks before Christmas.
We are now waiting to hear what might be done.
It’s an uncomfortably familiar feeling. A couple of decades ago, I got a cancer diagnosis on Dec. 23 and then was forced to wait to make a plan until after the holidays. Michael was right by my side. Now, I am returning the service.
It is not a chore, it is a privilege.
We have been spending most of this time settled on our big Ikea couch in the living room, watching Netflix and waiting. It has become our blue island in the storm. The storm of emotions. The storm we are headed into. We cling to each other in disbelief. This was not the plan.
We thought, as we headed into 2024, that there would finally be travel. A year of adventures. Well, I suppose this will be a year of adventure, just not the one we had imagined.
Years ago, I saw a one-woman show called “God Said Ha!” It was based on a memoir of the same name by Julia Sweeney, who performed it as a monologue. In it, Sweeney talks about all the things she had planned until the rug was pulled out from under her by a practical joker named God.
I don’t think that any super deity has decided to mess with us. I simply believe it is bad luck. There is no “shoulda, woulda, coulda” to consider. It is life.
Last week as the waves were pounding the coastline, I drove Michael to the bluff overlooking Seacliff Beach so we could see the strength, the wonder of the surf. We were not alone. Dozens of locals were out catching a glimpse of the power of nature. Down in Capitola Village, business owners waited urgently to see if their restaurants and shops would survive the onslaught of water and debris.
In Rio Del Mar, business owners and homeowners did the same. They filled sandbags, placed them and waited. They crossed fingers and sent prayers and volunteers stood ready to help when called on.
This is not unlike our lives right now.
We will meet with a Stanford oncologist this week. He will try to predict the future to the best of his ability. He will either tell us to begin stacking the sandbags to provide protection, or tell us to relax and embrace this time together for as long as we have it. We have friends who have volunteered to help us when we need it.
And so we wait. We wait together on our blue island. Holding hands. Bracing against the coming storm.