As NORMAL as POSSIBLE

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Chapter One

Every story has a beginning and an end, even when the road ends with tragic loss. Our story began in 1968 when I met the sixteen-year-old who became the love of my life. I have been told to never say never, but I do not believe there can or ever will be a second love of my life.

The young girl that stole my heart was vibrant, athletic, and tomboyish in a girlie kind of way. She was immediately accepted and loved by my family, all five brothers and two sisters. She grew up in a middle-class family where she was the only female in the immediate family circle. She only had one sibling, a brother nine years her senior, so when she was nine he had already left for the military. She kind of grew up with a male cousin a few years her junior; they would build tree forts and have adventures around the woods in the area, doing things a girl doesn't usually get into. I think her adventurous spirit began at this early age.

Our first meeting wasn't planned. I was attending a teenage dance with a couple of friends, and, as with most teen dances in the late sixties, it ended with a "spotlight dance." I rarely hung around for this spectacle as I wasn't a real good dancer and wanted to avoid the embarrassment of being shoved onto the floor. As I was readying myself to leave I found that my new suede coat, the envy of many of my friends, was not on the coat rack. I began to think the worst-someone had surely stolen this valuable piece of cloth!

As I surveyed the circle of people around the "spotlight couple" I spotted my coat on the shoulders of a pretty hazel-eyed girl. She was on the other side of the circle, and as I made my way around the circle she stepped back out of the crowd just in time for me to tap her on the shoulder and tell her she was wearing my coat. She refused to give it to me, stating that a mutual friend of ours had given it to her, and it was his coat. She insisted we find this friend and get the story straight. This was a trait she would have throughout her life, honest and true to a fault! Upon finding out the coat was mine she apologized and, though embarrassed, gave it to me. Much to my surprise I got what would be the best phone call ever later that week when she called to apologize more and ask if I would be at the next dance. These dances gave us the opportunity to get to know each other because we would often sit aside from the teenage commotion and talk and laugh; boy, looking back now, I don't think anyone will ever make me that comfortable again.

After a few years of teenage dating and graduation from high school, we had already begun to talk of marriage, but we were reluctant to follow through because we felt maybe we were too young. We did not want to rent a place to live, having already witnessed the difficulties other young couples were having when rent, families, and bills seemed to get in the way of home ownership. One big influence on our thoughts and plans was my older brother who married young and in 1970 became the father of twin boys. Living in a small apartment and working as a self-employed electrician, it took many years for he and his wife to establish themselves. But I knew Mick was the one I wanted to spend my life with, as I had written on the back of my high school graduation picture, which I gave to her in 1969:

"There are some people that have a certain way of showing thoughtfulness and concern for others that make them special friends and since I found that sort of friend when you and I first met, our days together will always be like you, too special to forget." She carried this picture with her always.

As fate would have it, even though I was only twenty, I was offered an opportunity to build what would be our first home. This happened shortly before Mick's nineteenth birthday. I was ready for the adventure, but I wasn't sure how receptive she would be. I got one of the first and biggest surprises of our lifetime together when I asked this nineteen-year-old beauty to help me build a house even though we were not married and had only begun to plan a life together. She never hesitated; she just asked, "Where?" I am still amazed that a nineteen-year-old girl would say yes to a crazy idea like that. But, to my surprise, after this first one, we built four more homes for ourselves and helped build and remodel many others for relatives and friends. We never lived in a home we did not build. Many people think when you say, "build you own house" you kind of did the smaller stuff, but no, when I say we built our own house, I mean we did all the tasks associated with the construction, everything our size-we're both under five foot five-and the building codes would allow us to.

On June 17, 1972, we were married; she not quite twenty and I not quite twenty-one. She had begun working in the banking industry before we were married, and this accounting experience would be what would define a career in the federal government. I had been employed in the electrical field, and this would be where I would remain throughout my career. In the early years of our marriage I worked long hours and was away each day for twelve to fourteen hours. Although this enabled us to live comfortably and travel later, had I known our "till death do you part" was coming at an unseemingly early age, I would have spent every free minute enjoying her company and spirit.

In 1973 to keep her and I company we added to our family by getting a dog. We fell in love with a little black toy poodle, which we named Ebony. Ebony kept us company and went with us everywhere possible, the most loyal of friends. When she passed away in 1986 we vowed never to have another dog because Ebony spent most of her life alone, because of our jobs and work. But, in 1998 while living in Virginia, our neighbors brought home a dog that would become as much a part of our lives as theirs. But there was one advantage-we could send him home when we were done with him! We appreciated our neighbors for allowing us to co-own their pet, Copper. Copper has spent many "vacations" at our home in Ocean City as his "parents" travel a lot in their work!

We were both athletic and enjoyed many sports: tennis, racquetball, softball, and we even tried skiing once. We always were kind of health conscious, but not health nuts. She was very competitive at all the sports we tried. She became an excellent softball player on several government office leagues, playing on all sorts of teams-women's leagues, co-ed, and, occasionally, when the men's team were short a player they would check to see if she was willing to suit up. In the late seventies during her midtwenties, she also became a dedicated runner. She started out not being able to run more than a quarter mile but gradually worked up to three to six miles a day. She would run at lunchtime or after work every day despite weather, rain, snow, ice, and even code red weather days. We spent lots of weekends at the beach, and she would run for what seemed like endless miles. Even today when I walk to the beach, there she is in my memory, running along the sand. The longest distance she ever ran was a half marathon. She would have loved to run a marathon, but after all the pounding, the knees would not stand up to 26.2 miles of more pounding.

One sport she decided to try did not last very long -rollerblading. She was very good on roller skates, but rollerblading is different in a lot of ways. On that particular weekend we were at our beach house, and she decided to go for a skate. I didn't and don't rollerblade, so I decide to ride the bike alongside her as she skated around the neighborhood. We had been skating/biking for a little while. Apparently she had gotten her nerve up and was going at a pretty good clip when she rolled past me on the bike, and I thought to myself, this isn't good. Ahead of us was a cut in the pavement with lots of gravel on the street. She made an attempt to turn away from the area, and, wouldn't you know it, she crashed. Going at the speed she was, I feared the worst-broken wrists, broken ankle, hurt head, all those things. But fortunately she had been wearing her wrist and knee guards, and her only injury seemed to be her pride and her butt. By the time we got back to our house her backside had turned a deep shade of purple and looked like two giant grapes. Other than the bruising she appeared to have no injuries to speak of except a couple of scrapes on her hands and legs. But in early 2008 we had an MRI of her thoracic spine that revealed an old injury to her T-6 and T-7 vertebrae. I think this was the result of that rollerblading crash, although she never complained of any back pain. The incident ended her rollerblading adventures, and she continued after this crash to be "as normal as possible."

We both had our separate careers, but we never had separate lives. It seems as though from the beginning of our relationship, until the cancer separated us, we were both content with a familiar face. As time passed and we matured I think that we always remained best friends; the one you are married to should always be your best friend. There was never a time in our relationship where I did not think, I can't tell her this, or that she ever felt there was anything she couldn't talk to me about. We carried this trust and bond for thirty-six years, one month, and twenty-four days, all of our married life.

THE DISCOVERY

I think it is sometimes unusual how we can remember with crystal clear clarity the moment we hear devastating news but not realize it as such. I think the discovery of her breast cancer is one such moment I will live with, with such clarity that it seems only yesterday.

On November 10, 1996, after her shower she came into our family room to watch television with me. She came to sit by my side and she said, "Feel this." What she wanted me to feel was a pea-sized ball, a lump under her skin about two inches above her left breast. I, the typical man, had no idea what a breast cancer tumor felt like and frankly neither did she. But we both agreed that it did not feel like something that should be there. The next few days she became anxious about the bump, and she decided to have it checked.

Inasmuch as she had been healthy and had never been to a doctor for anything other than regular checkups and a couple of emergency room visits, we did not have a family doctor. I, on the other hand, had a cardiologist and an allergy doctor. The allergy doctor entered our life after I nearly died in 1983 as I suddenly and without warning became allergic to onions and peppers. I went into anaphylactic shock-this after growing up on a farm and eating them all my life! That episode scared her so badly she was constantly vigilant about what I ate. In association with this allergy episode, I became familiar with a cardiologist to keep track of my general health. So her only thought for her care was to see her ob-gyn and get another opinion as to the process to get it checked. She made the appointment and after consultation with the ob-gyn, who recommended she have a biopsy to assure all of us that it wasn't dangerous.

On December 9 the biopsy was done. At that time, it took a few days to get results back. I went with her for the biopsy, which was done with a large needle and watched as the technicians took samples from the area around the bump and the surrounding tissue. Later that week, the doctor's office called with the results and asked her to come in and get them. We were both a little concerned when the doctor's staff stated they could not release the results over the phone. I still do not know why I was not with her when she picked up the results; it may have been that she went immediately after work to do so.

I will never forget when she walked in through the door at home. I greeted her with our usual hug and hello, and tears filled her eyes as she said, "The stupid thing's cancer." I controlled my emotions and consoled her, telling her we probably had found it early enough that it shouldn't be a problem, all the time fearing the worst because of my unfamiliarity with breast cancer. After all, here she was, only forty-four years old, and we had never thought of her having cancer in any form, especially at her age. We had both experienced the loss of someone very close due to cancer. Her father and mine had both passed away in 1990, mine from pancreatic cancer. Her father died suddenly due to lung cancer; he had never been treated for lung cancer nor were there indications he had the disease. Though she had no idea what we were about to encounter, she stated that she hoped she would be able to be "as normal as possible."

She had made an appointment to remove the bump, and the surgery would be performed on an outpatient basis at a local hospital on December 27, 1996, two days after Christmas. The required pre-op would be done on Friday, December 20, 1996. We decided it best to not tell the families beforehand so everyone could enjoy Christmas. As my wife went through the pre-op procedures, she began to cry, I think, not out of fear of the cancer, but because she had never had any type of surgery!

But I do remember her having a couple of emergency room visits at the hospital. One time occurred when we were building our third home for ourselves in Virginia in 1986 when she had to be rushed to an emergency room. We had borrowed a pickup from one of my brothers to transport some heating duct from the fabricator. This particular brother-I have five-was very meticulous about his vehicles; he kept them spotless, still does! As we were loading the duct work into the pickup bed, she closest to the cab and I at the tailgate, I asked her to let me know when to push the metal forward so as not to scratch the truck. We lifted a large piece onto the truck and I thought I heard her say okay. I pushed the metal-wrong thing to do! The metal was cradled in the inside of her left arm at the elbow, and when I pushed she jerked back, grabbed her arm, and said, "I'm cut." Not only was she cut, but also the artery was severed. She moved her hand and blood squirted about what seemed like twenty feet. A call to 911 quickly got her to an emergency room, sewed up with twenty stitches, arm wrapped like a mummy's, and disgusted as heck that she couldn't bend it! Even with the limited use of her left arm, she still continued to come to the homesite everyday after work and do whatever she could handle with one arm! But after this incident with sheet metal she never again would get near the stuff until it had been assembled. Here was a lady that could be dignified and proper with the best of them, but could hold her own in what is traditionally a man's world!

A second trip to the emergency room happened during one of her office league softball games. She played many positions, but in this particular game she was playing left field. She had begun to wear contacts; this was early on in contact technology, and she wore the hard ones. Well, this Amazon of a lady hit a high fly ball a little to the right side of left field. My wife, being as quick and agile as she was, immediately ran toward where she felt the ball would be, all the while calling, "I've got it." Apparently the center fielder didn't hear her, and leapt for the ball, just barely touching it enough to throw it off course to strike my wife in the left eye! She grabbed her eye, threw her glove, and began to bleed everywhere! Realizing that her contact was broken in a million pieces and she had a nasty gash above her eye, I rushed her to the emergency room thinking the worst-that she had lost her eyesight in her left eye! Well, the brave doctors removed all traces of the contact they could find, put eleven stitches above her eye and sent us on our way. In a few days, she had the shiner of all time-not only did she have the stitches, but the laces of the ball had left a railroad track bruise under the eye. She only missed one game.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from As NORMAL as POSSIBLEby R. Lee Hall Copyright © 2009 by R. Lee Hall. Excerpted by permission.
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