Devonne Brown

 It must be the year thirty-eight, thirty-nine, or it could be forty of my teaching career.. I felt good when I walked onto campus this year until I found out my friend, the head cook, wouldn’t, couldn’t be back to work. She has terminal cancer. She seemed fine at the pool this summer. She did complain a bit of a slipped disc in her back, but no one thought much about it. We took happy pills, got in and out of the water, caught rays, and acted like teenagers soaking up the sun. 

Imagine three women of a certain age, at a public pool with no kids taking up valuable real estate in the sun chairs. We got there early, ahead of the women with children, to get prime spots, and claimed the best chairs for ourselves. We had a lovely time. We also bronzed up beautifully. 

We’re of a certain age where disease and cancers catch  up with us. Michelle won’t last long. She’s in pain. She’s dying. 

She’s been told if she gets out of the hospital, she’ll go directly into hospice care. She’s dying. How do you live one minute and then start to die the next? I’ll find out soon enough. Soon enough.

Another friend from high school had colon cancer ten years ago or so. His home screening test came back bad the other day. Now, he’s freaking out, I don’t blame him at all. Again, he’s my age. He spent a lot of years, like I did, smoking weed and feeling great. 

My son took him to his appointment for his colonoscopy. It was the day of our open house at school or I’d have spent the day with him. He’s needed  moral support. He has only a brother left. His mom got him through the chemo and all the horrific treatment of ridding his body of cancer when it showed up the first time. She’s gone now. He’s well and truly terrified. His brother doesn’t have the right kind of compassion. I’m not sure I do either, but I feel closer to him. We’re good friends.

I’ve arrived at the age of reckoning. I can’t retire with all the debts I have. A sixty-five year old woman shouldn’t have debts. I’ll die in debt. I’ve even got five years left on a car payment. No retirement to speak of, I will die in the middle of class walking down the aisle to help a kid find a verb in a sentence, if I’m lucky