Bows and Marrows

My son asked me the other night if my “blood cell factory” was working again, and that reminded me of this blog post – one I meant to write long ago but didn’t. I just couldn’t.

Talking to children about illness, after all, is not something in which I am an expert. In fact, when the social worker gave me a book titled “When a Parent is Sick,” I instantly recoiled. We were not that family. And yet, devastatingly, we were.

The book was a knife to my stomach. It had ways to explain death and dying to children of every age. I nearly tossed it across the room. I was not going to tell my four-year-old that his mommy might die. That was simply not happening. But I didn’t want to lie to him either. He was old enough that he should know what’s going on. Besides, he is very clever and a master eavesdropper. Eventually he was going to pick up on what the grown-ups were saying.

So I sat him down to have “the cancer talk,” admittedly very angry at God that I had to have this talk at all. But we all have our roads to travel, and this was mine. I had found a video online from a children’s hospital that explained leukemia with all types of candies, and then I found another video that explained bone marrow (calling it a “blood cell factory”). My son looked from me to the videos, wide-eyed and nearly silent the entire time. Clearly he knew this was serious business, because for my son, being silent at any time is practically miraculous.

Finally I asked him if he had any questions.

“Do I have leukemia?” He asked. The mere thought of it tore my heart in half.

“No, baby, you don’t have leukemia. It’s very, very rare. You are not going to get leukemia.”

“Does Daddy have leukemia?”

“No, baby, Daddy doesn’t have it and he’s not going to get it.”

“Well then why did you get it?”

This was the part I was dreading. I could not explain to my son why I got leukemia because no one knew. I couldn’t explain to him how he could avoid it, or how I could avoid getting it again, because no one knew. It was infuriating. All I could tell him was that it was very rare. But how does a four-year-old understand “rare”? His mommy and daddy are his whole world. If Mommy can get it, then half the world can get it too.

But he seemed to accept my attempt at answers for the time being. We watched the videos again (upon request), and then he only had one more question:

“Mommy, when do you get your new bow and arrow?”

Well… I did my best. Clearly I couldn’t expect him to grasp it all. And I should have known that he would somehow turn it all into a weapons issue.

Come to think of it, I never did get any new weaponry along with my transplant. Perhaps now it’s time.