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Henry Jayasena Column - 175:
Story of a Cancer Patient - Part 17:
Welcome visitors, a couple of books
Now that I am ‘well’ and out of treatment, I can reflect much more
clearly on things past with equanimity. At the time of treatment you are
mostly conscious only of the weekly schedules, their nasty aftereffects,
the smells that cling even to your clothes and you are counting the days
when it will all be over.
It is rather like a long bad dream - a nightmare, when you think how
healthy you were only the other day and wondering how the hell all this
happened...
During the last few weeks I have had the opportunity of reading two
related books. One about a patient who suffered from ALS - Amyotrophic
Lateral Sclerosis - a disease that debilitates the patient’s nerves
slowly but surely.
The book is called ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’. It is not written by the
patient himself, but by one of his students. The patient is a Doctor of
Sociology and a College Professor in America by the name of Morrie
Schwartz. The writer was his student some twenty odd years ago and
presently a sports writer. His name is Mitch Albom.
The writer rediscovers his Professor by chance over a TV programme
and remembers his Tuesday sessions with the Professor. Those were heart
warming lecture/chat sessions which had moulded the writer’s early
years. He decides to spend his Tuesdays with his old friend and teacher
who is presently very ill. Hence the title of the book - ‘Tuesdays with
Morrie’.
Mitch Albom spends a total of fourteen Tuesdays with his old teacher
- the last fourteen weeks of his life. It is a heart warming narrative
written in the form of a weekly diary. It does not go into a clinical
analysis of the disease called ALS except to say - ‘ALS is like a lit
candle; it melts your nerves and leaves your body a pile of wax. Often
it begins with the legs and works its way up...’
Then the patient loses control of all the supportive muscles of his
body - but it keeps the mind untouched. Isn’t it rather like cancer, I
began to think as I read on and reread the book.
The book was a gift to me from a young girl who is studying in
America. She is a charmingly sweet girl by the name of Chami Aratchy.
She had migrated to America with her family some five or six years back.
She had come to Sri Lanka on a holiday and got herself involved in
some research work at the Cancer Institute at Maharagama.
I believe this has something to do with certain voluntary
patient-care activities she had undertaken together with her parents, in
Washington, where she is studying.
She had come across my little book ‘Balha Gilano’ in the Chemo Ward
of the Cancer Hospital. Then she had bought a copy of the book from the
present publishers, read it and called on me for a quiet chat - a sort
of interview. I believe it was part of her research.
Chami came with a whole list of questions, prepared in advance. She
wanted to know practically all the details of my cancer - when I
suspected it for the first time, how it came to be diagnosed, by whom,
the treatment, what I felt etc. Chami was a charming, though exacting
interrogator, nay, an extremely pleasant and courteous young person to
chat with.
On her second or third visit she presented this book - Tuesdays with
Morrie - to me and then she went back to the States.
I think it is a book anyone who is seriously ill should read. It
gives so much courage - the almost daring attitude of the ALS patient -
Morrie Schwartz. Perhaps Chami wanted to give me courage too - more of
it in case I faltered. I still do not know. She even offered to send me
any medically helpful things I might require.
“If you can spare the money please send a small LEGO set for my
grandson...” I told her and assured her that I will contact her if I
needed anything that badly.
A few weeks later I did receive a notice from the parcels Dept. of
the G.P.O. And that was the LEGO set! Was n’t I delighted! And the
little grandson of my crocodile stories was even more delighted!
In spite of our interview I did not have much information about Chami
- except that she was in Washington D.C. and attending a university
there. I was not even sure whether it was Medicine or Archeology that
she was studying.
I wrote to her again after the September 11th disaster in New York
but there was no reply.
After a long lapse I did receive a letter from Chami - a very dear
letter indeed. With her permission I reproduce here two passages from
her letter:- “I want you to know you have touched my life since I was a
girl of five years of age, when I first saw your plays in my younger
days, but my parents used to sing songs from your plays and those songs
made me forget how hungry I was or all the adversity I had in my
life.... I used to read the book ‘Hunuwataye Katawa’ over and over again
when I was little.
I had a very old copy of that in my house which my Dad used when he
was in the University. That book was one of the few books I brought to
the U.S. with me.
I lost many books along with everything we owned, in Sri Lanka, as we
moved to the U.S. So, in a sense you have taught me to love literature
and to love reading. Even though you are not aware of it. You have been
a wonderful teacher to me in many ways long before we met a few months
ago...”
“Life here is turning to normal after the tragedies it has faced a
couple of months ago. I do not think that life will be the same again,
but people are returning to their regular activities. I guess no matter
where we live, we cannot escape the cruelty of people....”
I am hoping to see Chami on her next visit home too. [For the
information of the reader, I did meet Chami on her next visit. I went up
to Kandy to sign as a witness at her brother’s wedding. Chami is right
now in Botswana undergoing training in HIV/AIDS relief work after her
graduation]
The second book that I read recently was also a gift. A lady who had
read my book [Balha Gilano] wrote to me saying that she too is a cancer
patient and that she is still under treatment.
She had given a phone number and we called her. We invited her to
visit us when she came to Colombo next, for treatment.
She came with her doctor-husband and we had a rather illuminating
chat.. Illuminating I say, because she spoke about the general attitude
of most people, to cancer, about which I too had dealt with briefly, in
my book. She had lost most of her hair and was wearing a wig. We would
not have noticed it had she not told us about it.
Being a working woman she had to move with people and she never let
it be known she was a cancer patient and had a breast removed. She said
that people would shun if they knew.
I told her it was not so bad. She assured us that the attitude of
women, especially, was different. We told her that she would soon regain
her hair and health and nobody would be the wiser.
This lady on her second visit brought this book as a present. It is
written by a cancer patient whose cancer started as a little mole behind
the neck and proceeded to his throat. The man - John Diamond - is a well
known columnist, a radio and television broadcaster.
He simply calls his book ‘C’ with a rather wry explanatory note -
‘Because cowards get cancer too’! John Diamond who writes a regular
column to the Sunday Telegraph of London started writing about his own
experience with cancer in his column - with no holds barred. The column
was widely read and now he has brought it out as this book called ‘C’.
I found the two books - ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ and ‘C’, widely
contrasting. Mitch Albom of ‘Tuesdays’ is cryptic, yet extremely kind
and sensitive in his narrative - especially to his friend and teacher ,
Morrie Schwartz.
John Diamond is downright rude almost, even to himself as a patient.
Even in his predicament with cancer - throat cancer at that - [ Imagine
the effect it would have on a radio and TV personality!] he remains the
tough, hard-hitting, no holds barred columnist that he is.
He offers no hope or sympathy to fellow patients. He offers only his
incisive and clinical analysis of his own struggle with the devil called
cancer! He leaves the reader to wage his own battle with the devil!
Both books I found to be compulsive reading. If the one is balm, the
other is surgical spirit on one’s wounds!
I have mentioned the two books for two reasons. One, because they
were gifts from two very special persons. Two, because they present most
vividly two diametrically opposed attitudes towards an almost
irredeemable situation. Perhaps my readers would want to read them too.
Thought of the Week
For the life of me I cannot understand this mess called ‘Grade 1
Admissions’ to schools. I am sure we have enough schools in the country
to accommodate all the Grade 1 students without much difficulty. The
problem lies in the QUALITY and PRESTIGE of the schools.
Naturally any parent would like to admit his or her child to the very
best school within the area of their residence. Unfortunately only
certain schools have earned the reputation of being ‘GOOD’ schools.
The others are either ‘MIDDLING’ or downright ‘ORDINARY’. Now who is
responsible for this situation? Surely it is the Education Ministry
itself? And the Education Department?
Why cannot these worthy authorities take some wisely planned action
to upgrade all the schools under them to earn the PRESTIGE label?
Without stuffing ALL the good teachers into the so called
‘prestigious’ schools, there should be an equally fair distribution of
the best of teachers to all schools. If they don’t have enough ‘good’
teachers, there should be a long term plan to train worthy men and women
to be ‘good’ teachers.
And, I believe, the reputation of a school depends mainly on the Head
Master or the Principal.
A dedicated man or woman can performs wonders to a school. A fine
example is what Mr. R.I.T. Alles did with the D.S. Senanayake Vidyalaya
which began in a thatched shed about three decades ago.
Men and Women who lead schools should be persons of vision, wisdom
and dedication. When the Education Dept. lost Mr. Alles due to
bureaucratic bungling the authorities deprived at least four generations
of students in this country of a pioneer and visionary in education. The
private sector gained and the State sector lost.
What I say is, make EVERY school a PLACE OF PRIDE in its locality. If
that happens which parent would want to demean themselves by preparing
false documents in order to ‘smuggle’ a child into a school?
Of course this has to be a well thought out, well planned strategy
that would require a certain amount of time without politicians being
allowed to bungle in.
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