Not just another firework show

The author’s brother standing next to his wife, holding up his white lantern.
Photo by Matana McIntire.

Saturday, Oct. 8, I was lassoed out of my cocoon of blankets by my mother in frenzy. “Are you ready, Tana?” she called as she stomped from one side of the house to the other. She did the same to Brother No. 2 in the bedroom next to mine. “Hurry up,” she said. “They’re on their way over and we’re going to follow them there.”

‘There’ was the Oregon Convention Center: That night in downtown Portland, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) was holding its annual Light the Night Walk, which started with a reception in the center, included a short march across the Willamette River and ended with a show of extravagant fireworks on the waterfront.

My family was going because in the spring of 2016, my eldest brother was diagnosed with a seven-by-seven-centimeter tumor resting just above his heart. He spent a grueling summer receiving treatment, and on Sept. 23 – just two weeks prior to the LLS walk – he discovered he was officially in remission.

Now, that’s a very concise description of how it played out. That’s just the facts, not the story. The story is my family and the role that cancer played in our dynamics. This story has been written a hundred times over, unfortunately, with many different outcomes. And, of course, I only have my own perspective to attest to.

As for that Saturday night, I was not in a good mood. I’d just arrived home from work and knew I had to go back in the next morning. I knew I didn’t actually have time to hang out with friends, but I was somehow going to try and fit them into my evening. All I really wanted to do was to lie in bed, if I were being honest with myself.

What pulled me out of my cocoon of blankets, what got me dressed and compliant to my mom’s whims, was an obligation to my eldest brother.

I was born eight days before my brother’s 10th birthday. We’re both Virgos, 10 years apart, but still cut from the same cloth if you believe in that stuff. Despite having different fathers, I was never compared so much, in reverent tones, to any one person as I was to him. According to everyone we both encountered, I was his little clone. His spitting image. And I never understood it until I was old enough to truly get to know him. He was more than my ‘cool older brother who could probably kick your ass.’ He became someone I grew up to be just like, inadvertently. As I came into my adulthood, my relationship with him and his wife became – still is – one of my closest and most dear.

So, when he was diagnosed with cancer, I thought I had to change who I fundamentally was in order to be there for him. Sure – I’m a fucking sap. I know it, I’ll declare it for all to hear, but I’ll never give someone the satisfaction of actually knowing how I feel, let alone what I’m thinking (sorry, Mom). The act of expressing emotions and me? Not things that mesh well.

While I tried to embody this perfect support system, like I thought I needed to be, in the end all I could do was settle on how I could realistically help him. Take him where he needs to go; watch his children as much as I could; support his wife with my friendship. Be the self I was around him before all this happened. I went to bed feeling like Scrooge because I couldn’t emote anything, but I did what I could. And I learned something.

Simple things can be powerful. Yes, yes: Every book, sappy article such as this, TV show, and movie has pounded this simple idea into our brains since I don’t know when. But, as you would guess, this truth doesn’t really click until you experience it first hand.

I remember one day of watching my brother’s children very distinctly. My whole point of being there was so he could rest, though that was something that never quite happened. (While I usually sat around on my phone, he would essentially be a dad to his children.) This day, we were sitting out on the porch as his girls ran about. He was crouched on a child-sized Doc McStuffins chair, and I on a patio chair.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it,” he said, pulling my eyes from the depths of Facebook. “But it actually helps when you’re here.”

It’s the simple things. Like showing up to an LLS walk on a evening when your body is yearning for the comfort of your own bed.

Advocate Staff