The memory is a funny thing. I remember that call as if it were yesterday. I don’t remember the time of day; I don’t remember what season it was; I’m not sure I remember the exact year it was. But the words still reverberate in my memory almost a decade later. “Abe can you come home. I just came from the doctor. I had a bad mammogram. They think I have breast cancer. Can you come home? I’m scared. Please come home.”

Throughout our marriage Ellie was convinced she was going to die of cancer. Pancreatic cancer had taken her father two months before his forty-fourth birthday. Although there is no known link between the two diseases it is no coincidence that Ellie succumbed to breast cancer just after she turned forty-four. To Ellie her death was the confirmation of the inevitable. But for me, in a tragic and ironic way, it fulfilled the essence of what she was.

Come sit by my Side
Come as close as the air
Sharing the memories of grace
And wander in my world
And dream about the pictures I have made
Of changes

When the call came I was shocked. She seldom kept things from me. But this time I had no idea she was sick. She had called me at work before -- when she had lost a contract or had a bad day. I had always been there for her. Just as she had always been there for me. But this time I knew it was not something that we could fix with a couple of candles and a bottle of Zinfandel. Like the song, we were about to wander through a world of changes.

We Talked that night and we decided that whatever was to happen we had to approach the ordeal with courage and humour.

I remember Ellie revitalizing an old joke. When the doctor said to her “We’re just doing a biopsy to be safe. I’m 90% sure it’s not cancer. I’m not at all worried.” She looked the doctor straight in the eye and said in a cool firm voice, “Doctor, if they were doing a biopsy on you I wouldn’t worry either.”
It was that courage and forthrightness that got us through the next eight years – eight years of fear then relief, then pain, agony, and finally relief again.

The green leaves of summer
Turn red in the fall.
To brown and to yellow they fade.
And then they have to die,
Trapped, within the circle time parade
Of changes

Objectively, Ellie may not have amounted to much. She had a couple of failures. Changed careers a few times. But at her funeral many friends told me that the credited her in some small way for whatever success they had achieved. Loneliness at the top was as unacceptable to Ellie as failure.

Even when the illness rendered he totally bed ridden she spent her time in front of the computer doing the newsletter for her support group. And not only that she trained other volunteers to use the word processing and publishing tools. She new she wouldn’t be around for long and she wanted to make sure that the newsletter would go on after her.

It wasn’t until the spinal metastases had made her a total invalid that she stopped working on the newsletter. Then I could see no goals left for her. I watched, as this once independent and dynamic woman had to be lifted out of bed in a sling to be placed in a wheelchair to be wheeled to the window. But still she kept fighting. And I couldn’t understand why.

Soon it became clear. On her 44th birthday some friends and I bought her a cake. Put some candles into it. And came into her room singing happy birthday. She turned to her mother and said “ Is it my birthday today. I’m 44.” When her mother said "yes", she said, “ I did it. I beat dad.”

I knew then it was over; six days later she died.

My tears will be wondering
Why you’re somewhere else.
A last cup of wine let us share
I’ll kiss you one more time
And leave you on the lonely river shore
Of changes.

The memory is a funny thing. You see I don’t really remember that time merely as tragedy. Just as life is full of changes the memory changes its view of events. I remember those days with a degree of fondness and pride. My wife’s last days showed me a lot. At the end of her life, Ellie showed all of us how to do it. She developed a set of goals like the completing the newsletter. She spent the time teaching others to take over for her. But most important in the face of the preeminent defeat she chose a battle she could win and fought with courage to TRIUMPH

Email Abe, this stories author.