Remember Me

With the official diagnosis in, things begin to feel real. It’s Hodgkin Lymphoma, stage IIIs. In the coming weeks, I’ll get a port-a-cath installed and start immunotherapy and chemotherapy. I have justifiable high hopes, based on statistics and faith in my oncologist, that this cancer is not only treatable, but curable. Still, perhaps because of my age, and because this is my third time around, I’m feeling just a bit sorry for myself. I’ll get over it, for sure, but the emotions are there, and close to the surface. Now, more than ever, I’m missing contact with my adult children, from whom I have been estranged now for more than fifteen years. I wrote the song “Remember Me” first for my daughter, the one who broke with me most abruptly. Now, after all these years, the song is for both of them. They are both accomplished artists in their fields, she with poetry, he is a rock musician in a band with a respectable following. I am so proud of them, and I wish they knew.