My Friend Maria
“Tita, who is the boy that will be staying at your house this summer?” asked my 15-year-old niece, Renata.
“Alexander. He is the son of my friend Maria. He’s spending the summer here to learn Spanish. He’s going to use your cousin Pablo’s room, which is free for the summer because Pablo is away taking a course of his own.”
“Who is your friend Maria?”
“You know how I am always talking about character strengths? Maria is the person who taught me, without even trying, a lot about character strengths. She taught me about gratitude, hope, zest, spirituality, love, humor, and perspective. She still does when I read her blog. I met Maria 24 years ago when she first came to Spain.”
It’s the year 1996. Maria comes to Spain on a very prestigious scholarship to spend a year as a language assistant at a school near Madrid. She is from a small town in Pennsylvania. Back home, Maria is getting a master’s degree to become a speech-language pathologist. She is a good student. She can roll her “r”s and pronounces “funciona” correctly, which is not always the case for many English speakers. Maria is all smiles. She is also a talker and likes to tell jokes. People are naturally drawn to her and she befriends people quickly.
When her grant ends, she goes back to the United States. She graduates, and life goes on. A few years go by and she marries her high school sweetheart, Tim. Later, they have a baby, Alexander. At the same time, she learns she has cancer. More specifically, she has stage IV colon cancer. Most people with her diagnosis only live for two years. Her world is shattered—she had so many plans. She wanted to watch Alexander grow, take him to Disneyland, Hawaii where Tim has family, and Spain. She wanted to teach him Spanish. She wanted to have more children. She worries about her husband and son. Who’s going to help Tim raise Alexander? Who’s going to take care of Alexander when Tim has to work night shifts or be away for a couple of days because he is a police officer? She has so many questions besides the obvious “Why me?”
So, she starts chemotherapy and a blog. She writes not just because it helps her make sense of the situation, but also because it’s a quick way to keep family and friends informed all at once. She asks her loved ones to read her blog so when they see each other, they can talk about pleasant things and about her friends’ lives. She is genuinely interested in listening to her friends. She doesn’t want to make all conversations about her and her sickness.
Naturally, she hates chemotherapy, not just because she has to be hooked to the pump for six hours at the hospital and then 48 more hours at home, but also because it prevents her from breastfeeding her newborn. Oh, and the side effects! There is fever and fatigue, but she can’t rest. Her baby doesn’t sleep through the night and during the day, she has to take care of him. Tim wishes he could just stop working so he can take care of Maria and the baby, but they’re an average middle-class family that have to pay their bills. Maria’s mom and mother-in-law come and help sometimes, but they live in a different town. So, Maria carries on with her life…cancer and all.
Nevertheless, she is happy. She appreciates the little things in life. She enjoys the taste of delicious, branded coffee from the lobby of the hospital where she goes for chemo. She is grateful for family and friends who visit or come help decorate the Christmas tree when she’s exhausted because of treatment. She even finds going to the bathroom a blessing because side effects include constipation sometimes. And she tells you about it, giggling. She celebrates every milestone of her baby’s more than any other mom in the world: his first steps, his first tooth, his first word, his first birthday! The celebration of life continues that summer when Maria, Tim, and Alexander travel to Hawaii to visit Tim’s relatives. It’s another first for Alexander: the beach! Maria enjoys every moment of the trip because she never knows if it will be the last one. During the trip, Maria and Tim also celebrate their wedding anniversary by going on a date night since their relatives offered to babysit. Maria considers herself lucky, after all, because of all the love that surrounds her.
After her first “cancerversary”, as she calls it, she has to go on a more aggressive chemo treatment because there’s something in her lymph nodes. The side effects now include hair loss and a face rash, which hinder her self-esteem; more fatigue, which is intensified by the fact that her one-year-old still doesn’t sleep through the night; and bloody stool, which she tells you about jokingly because “when you have cancer, nobody judges.” Her friends are pregnant with their second babies and she can’t help but feel jealous of them because of it and because they have hair. Nevertheless, she chooses to focus on the things that she does have. She has a beautiful little family. She has loving friends. She has a body that can still move, walk, and do yoga. She has intact cognitive function that allows her to speak Spanish and write a blog. In any case, all she ever wants is to watch Alexander grow. To do that, all she needs is to be alive, which she is. She no longer has the beautiful dark, dense curls that used to adorn her head, but that’s okay because, with or without hair, she is still here for her son. She savors every hug, every kiss Alexander gives her, and every word he says. The few words that he knows are just the words Maria needs to hear. He tells her that he loves her and that she is pretty. In that moment, she understands that she doesn’t need to be beautiful for the world because she is beautiful in the eyes of her son. She smiles, but all of a sudden, her biggest fear takes over: that Alexander won’t remember her. So, she says a prayer right then. Regardless, she prays every day because she is a person of faith. She prays every day for just one more day. If every day she can be granted only one more day, everything will be okay.
The third year with cancer, Maria is very proactive and determined to win this fight. She has made it past the odds, after all. She has always had an analytical mind, so she documents herself, she researches options, and she studies every resource on cancer, colon cancer, and stage IV colon cancer. She puts in action everything she finds that seems credible. She participates in a research study about the effects of physical activity on cancer patients which provides her with an exercise routine and free equipment. She reduces her sugar intake significantly and she learns how to make different vegetable juices to drink every morning. She starts an alternative treatment with mistletoe. She even looks into joining a clinical trial. She also contacts an NGO called First Descents which organizes outdoor adventure trips for young cancer patients. She qualifies to attend one of their retreats, so she travels to Colorado to join fifteen other young people who share a similar experience. They go zip-lining and rock climbing to embrace the motto of the organization: Out Living It. This excursion turns out to be just what the doctor ordered. Maria celebrates being alive and being capable of so much in spite of her sickness. She makes the organization’s slogan her own.
That fall she celebrates Alexander’s first day of preschool, her 35th birthday, and her 3rd “cancerversary”. Life looks good, or at least as good as life with cancer can look. The shadow of her illness is always there in the back of her mind. It’s in the side effects. It’s in the anxiety she feels in the days leading up to her scans. However, these days her cancer markers are stable, so she is able to go on a chemo pill instead of the intravenous chemo. She is living a normal life, so to speak. She is working part-time. Tim and Maria took Alexander to Disneyland. She is still involved with First Descents and is planning a fundraiser so other patients can experience the healing powers of nature and community. In the spring, she finds a new specialist in Florida and travels there thanks to friends who gifted her and Tim their miles. Otherwise, Maria and Tim wouldn’t have been able to afford the trip at that moment. The oncologist in Florida suggests a targeted cancer drug and immunotherapy. This new treatment brings about a new wave of side effects including vomit and fatigue. Nonetheless, Maria accepts them as part of life because, cancer or not, everyone struggles. She understands that suffering is inherent to the human condition and, while she has to deal with cancer, other people have to deal with their own fights. She does her chores and runs her errands with gusto because happiness is found in the moments of everyday life if we stop to appreciate them. Even on days when she has to stay up until one in the morning baking a cake for her son’s 4th birthday.
Soon after, she has to add radiation therapy to her treatment because the doctors found something in her abdomen. The side effects include extreme fatigue, digestive problems and appetite loss. She deals with them by keeping herself occupied, mentally and physically, planning her fundraiser. The event is very successful and she is able to make a very generous donation to First Descents. Because of this, the organization treats her to one of their international adventures in Costa Rica. She goes on the trip, but this time, she is not able to participate in all of the outdoor activities because she doesn’t have the physical strength. When she comes back, she has to go back to chemotherapy because she is not responding to her current treatment. This new treatment causes extreme pain which doesn’t rescind with medication. She is worried. She starts to think fatigue and pain are not side effects, but cancer effects. She cannot sleep well or function properly. Her friends and family help in every way they can: they drive her, they bring groceries and meals, they babysit, and they keep her company. She ends up in the hospital twice. Her liver is full of bile, her bilirubin levels are extremely high, and the tumor has grown. Upon talking to the doctors, she understands there’s not much else they can do besides ramping up the chemo, but this would decrease her quality of life even further. After much thought and knowing she has tried everything, she makes the difficult decision to stop treatment, go home, and hope for a miracle. Those days at home, she is showered with love from people whose lives she has touched, near and far. She, in return, offers people a smile and a joke when they visit, even on days when she is in a lot of pain. She receives more support and admiration messages than she can read and answer.
She says her goodbyes and tells Alexander that she loves him and explains to him that she would be going to a beautiful place where they would reunite one day, but not for many years, because he still had to go on many adventures and take care of dad and grandma. She tells him she would always be with him and that whenever he wanted to tell her something or ask her a question, he could. He would then hear a little voice inside of him, and that would be her, answering. She tells Tim she loves him and says sorry for dragging him down the cancer road. She tells him that he is the best husband and dad and to not be afraid of raising Alexander by himself; he’d be a great dad because he is capable of true love, and love would guide him. Tim tells her he loves her and thanks her for all their adventures, especially, for their biggest one…parenting. He tells her not to be sorry, because through the events they lived, they were able to grow a profound love for each other that many couples don’t even get to experience in a lifetime. He says he will always love her and will never forget her.
“Ding dong!” The doorbell rang.
“Buenas noches,” said the 16-year-old young boy with a heavy American accent.
“Buenas noches, Alexander. Pasa,” I said, in Spanish, because I always like to speak in the language the other person would like to practice.
“Gracias. Well, excuse me because my Spanish is not very good yet, but I am very excited to spend the summer here learning and practicing. Thank you for the opportunity.”
“My pleasure. Alexander. This is Renata, my niece.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Alexander. “What a nice bufanda you’re wearing! My mom taught me that word when I was little. She also taught me nariz, cabeza, mano, pie, ombligo,” -he giggles- “vaso, cuchara, pelota. I remember everything so vividly. I’m so glad mom sent me here. Because, she did! I am here because of her friends back home who chipped in to pay for my flight and also her friends here, like you, who offered to host me.”
He smiled. I smiled too. He had Maria’s same smile, her same positive outlook on life, and her same ability to focus on the positive and see beauty and blessings in everything. I will tell her this next time I see her. She must be so proud.