May 27, 2016, 11:42 p.m.
Zander graduated from Lil' Learners preschool in Redwood City, California this morning. He proudly galloped across the stage to receive his preschool Finisher's Medal, grinning deliriously and passionately waving to Mom, Dad, Declan, Viviana, and Aila. In a commemorative "Class of 2016" program, Zander said that he likes cars but not books. And when he grows up, he wants to be Captain America.
Zander has been at Lil' Learners for two years. Two years that included pregnancy, Declan's birth, Declan's collicky infancy, and leukemia. I barely know the best way to drive to the school let alone his teachers' names. We entrusted Viviana to get him there three times a week, and she has. We have trusted his teachers to ensure that he is playing and learning and making friends like little boys his age should be doing. Neither Brian nor I really knows what he did there this past year (other than a ton of art projects that he brings home), but Zander was always excited to go and always happy when he returned. While we focused on his sister's leukemia, we trusted that other people would help our son grow and learn. And he has! He was dignified and confident as he received his Medal from Teacher Steffanie, somehow achieving this milestone in spite of the agony of our last year. I felt simple gratitude. Wild amounts of gratitude. For Viviana, who calmly got him up morning after morning to get ready for school, after sometimes only a few hours of chaotic sleep because Brian had whisked Sissy away to the ER in the middle of the night with a fever. For his teachers, who treated our family with warmth, understanding, and dignity even though we didn't have time to learn their names, who tolerated our sending Zander to school with orange juice (and not some unsugary drink) for snack (also, since when did OJ become poison for kids?). But mostly gratitude for Zander, our beautiful boy who has been asked to grow up far too quickly since last August, who abruptly lost his best friend. He carried on with the business of being a little boy, learning how to speak and articulate, run around the playground with other kids, and sit quietly at graduation with his friends while the teacher spoke. All the while navigating our family's leukemia. As far as I'm concerned, Zander Silas, you already ARE Captain America.
And...leukemia carries on, of course. Dexamethasone again this week. By 11:20am, Aila (3 years old and ~31 pounds) had already eaten five breakfast sausages, a slice of pizza, and two reasonably large plates of spaghetti. We were worried that she would enter crazyland during the more serious parts of Zander's graduation, but somehow we didn't think to pack starchy snacks. Stupid, stupid! Fifteen minutes in, she began crying loudly that "I hungry." After one or two renditions, I side-glanced at Brian, who was already on his feet running to the post-graduation ceremony snack tables to grab cookies. Steroids are loud and insatiable, and we needed silence and space for Zander (for once) to take center stage.
In many ways, the past week was an eventful one. My very first and very cherished friend from graduate school, Vyga, came to visit for four nights with her daughter Simona, who is somehow almost six years old! Zander had time to play and fall in love with Simona. And Vyga and I spent time trying to fill the space that pediatric cancer creates, that somehow divides the world into cancer families and familes without cancer. We made some headway, she and I, and I continue to be astounded (as I was during graduate school) at her brilliance, curiosity, integrity, and humility. Thank you for wanting to know us and see us, Vyga, Simona, and Michael, taking time and money and energy from your lives, during very vulnerable and not-so-fun Cosgroverstreet days. I kept saying it to Vyga, and I'll say it again. It means the world.
Yesterday, May 26th, was also the one-year anniversary of my mother's death. One year ago my mother left this planet. I thought about her all day on Thursday, of course. I wore to work her cherished Rolex watch, which I had fitted to me years ago when we first moved her to a nursing home. But I saw clients and joined conference calls and read dissertations and papers like I normally would. I felt a weird sort of guilt, like I should be more debilitated than I was. Where was the paralysis, the tears, the emotional torpor, after all? But then I thought...she would understand and get it. Approve, even. "There is no time for torpor amidst leukemia, Vicky," she would say with a pronounced gasp. I miss her. I mean come on, of course I miss her. I've missed parts of her--more and more each year--since she started getting sick at the age of fifty-two, in 2002. There have been many times in the past year, when my father and brother have been in the same physical space as I, alongside Brian and the kids. In those moments, it's really often felt like she just must be in the bathroom. "Your mother's in the bathroom," my father would say. She'll be out any minute, just hang tight. But then of course, she doesn't come out. There is a discernible space in the room that could only be filled by her presence. It has truthfully been in those moments that I've decided that Wendellyn (nee' Hinton) Cosgrove led a purposeful and decidedly meaning-filled life. It feels like she must just be in the bathroom..AND I want her to come out and join the conversation. You're missing, Mom. I miss you. And somehow you are with me every single day.
Congratulations, Zander Silas! Sausage and pasta are coming, Sissy. Onward, Cosgroverstreets. Onward with purpose and meaning.
Comments
Chris Cosgrove 8 years, 6 months ago
Thanks once again, Vic, for a truly wonderful blog.
Link | ReplyLove, Chris
Natalie Whiteford 8 years, 6 months ago
Way to go Zander! And way to go to all the Cosgroverstreets in body or spirit...you are an amazing family and we all love you.
Link | Replyvk 8 years, 6 months ago
Sometimes when something awful happens in life it feels as if the rug has been ripped out from under you - resulting in a visceral feeling of gasping for air while being sent head over heels. One unexpected realization gleaned from my visit with you was that pediatric cancer (diagnosis & treatment) repeatedly, intermittently, & unexpectedly brings with it that visceral experience of falling & not knowing how badly it will hurt. Thank you for opening your home & your life to me & Simona. You all are extraordinary people. Really just a superlative family & team. I'm looking forward to your lives becoming free from the relentless preoccupations that accompany cancer. Difficult to fathom, isn't it.
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