Getting The News

Coleen and I had a busy Labor Day weekend planned. My brother Jim was visiting from Lorain, Ohio and we had tickets to see the J Giels Band Friday night at an outdoor concert on Buffalo’s waterfront. We were going to that concert with some other friends of ours. The Harders, Bob and Mary and also Coleen’s long time friend, Cindy. Coleen had  always thought that Cindy and my brother Jim should get to know each other better. She thought they would make a nice couple even though they lived 200 miles apart.

The six of us met at our house and we all piled in Coleen’s minivan and drove downtown. The concert was great, the venue, the bands, the beer, the weather, all fantastic. We all had fun dancing and laughing and drinking. Then back to our house for a nightcap or two with my brother.

The next afternoon, we were back at the waterfront again but not for another concert. This time, we were going for a boat ride on the Spirit of Buffalo which is a 73 foot, 42 passenger clipper ship with a bunch of sails. The roster for this event was a little different but included Coleen, Me, Jim, Cindy, Coleen’s sister Karen and her husband Brian and Coleen’s parents. We were out on Lake Erie for over two hours and that sail was so much fun. It was very windy and the captain and crew knew just how to get those sails set to ride the wind. Lots of fun for all. Here’s a picture of that weekends social director, Coleen, on the Spirit of Buffalo. See that smile on her face? That’s how she looked that whole time at the concert, on the boat, at the house, in the car. She was happy and having fun, being with people and being Coleen.

After the boat docked, we all headed back to our house for pizza, beer, wine and conversation. My brother Jim thought he was in love with some on-line girl he had not yet met, so he was on the phone with her and was distracted a little. The rest of us though, carried on. The next morning was Sunday and Coleen and Cindy had plans to go to a couiple of Goodwill stores looking for God knows what. I stayed behind and saw Jim off as he was in a hurry to get back to his home in case that girl wanted to meet him or something. After he left I was alone for a while and went upstairs to work on a website I was never going to finish.

Coleen came home a little while later and came upstairs to see what I was up to. I asked her about the shopping trip with Cindy and she said it was just OK. She seemed a little tired.

She said, “Honey, I’ve got something I have to tell you.” She sounded so serious, more serious than I had ever heard her before. There is no way to write how serious she sounded when she said that and she had my full attention. “What is it, Hon?” I was spinning thinking she was either sick again or had met somebody else and was leaving me.

“Well, you know I had that colonoscopy a couple weeks ago and then I had to go get a scan because they couldn’t finish the procedure? Well, the doctor called me and said they saw lesions on my liver and my lungs and they think it’s cancer.”

She then went on to explain to me how breast cancer can metastasize to other organs years after you think it’s gone. And it just comes back worse than the first time and in different places. And that that’s what they think had happened to her. She told me people sometimes live as long as 10 years after a diagnosis like this. She knew of someone who was in the 17th year of survival. I remember holding her and crying with her and saying that even that wasn’t long enough. That’s what we did for a long time. Hold each other and cry, and try to talk a little. She said she didn’t want to tell the kids. She didn’t want to break their hearts. We held each other a little bit longer and then kind of composed ourselves. We knew we had a big battle ahead of us and being emotional probably wasn’t the best way to do battle. Plus, ahe still had to undergo testing to confirm the cancer was back.

We switched gears a little, I showed her what I was doing on my website and she seemed interested but I don’t think she was. We were by ourselves the rest of that day but with family on Monday which was Labor Day 2012. Most people didn’t know what was going on. It was better that way.

I have thought about this many times since that day. Look again at the photo above with Coleen smiling, waving, holding a can of Magic Hat, having fun, talking, socializing, being Coleen. Does that look like a woman with a secret? Does that look like she knows she is probably facing the battle of her life? For those two days with our company and guests and friends, she was the perfect hostess and coordinator. Nobody would ever guess what she had on her mind, including me.

Coleen was a remarkable woman in so many ways. The next twelve months of her being Coleen with cancer again proved that to me over and over. Always positive, always thinking about her family, always Coleen.