Emma Gordon - What Can I Bring?

 

 

I met Margie at a Wednesday night cancer support group. I walk in and she's sitting on this wicker throne like chair. She was a 50 something upper west side Jewish lady in fabulous shoes, and a suit and a wig, and I was a 20 something Australian actor who was wearing the shirt that she'd slept in. I was there, because even though I was then in remission, I had started to drink a lot by myself. I'd gotten drunk and fallen off my loft bed twice. 

 

And that night, I told my story and I started to cry. Margie moves seats from her throne to sit next to me, and she put her hand in my hand and she said, “This is my age. I'm 28. I'm not 58. I don't know when that happened.” I liked her immediately. 

 

At first, it was just group on Wednesdays, and then it was cocktails after group, and then it was lunches. She took me shopping to buy proper heels. She would tell me about old lovers and New York in the 1970s, because she didn't have any kids of her own and I certainly didn't have a Jewish-American mother, so we were perfect. 18 months after that meeting, that first meeting, she had a big surgery. It was like a make it or break it surgery. They opened her up and they found that the cancer had covered her organs like a web. There was nothing to do, so they just sewed her back up. And she had about a month. 

 

When Margie and I talked about dying, she said, “You know, it's so weird because I can't imagine the world going on after I'm gone that the sun will rise and the traffic will keep moving and the news will come on at 06:00." And I couldn't have agreed more. That last month, in the beginning, it was like a sleepover party. We would be in the bedroom, just me and a few of her best friends, and she'd be divvying out her wardrobe. And in the kitchen, her husband was keeping busy and cooking. The door would open, and she would smell all these smells, but she couldn't eat anymore, and she was starving and it made her angry. 

 

When I would call, I would ask her, “Is there anything I can bring?” Or, I'd ask her husband that in the background, I could hear her in the background saying, “Nips.” [audience laughter] I would quickly learn that Nips are these little sucking candies that come in different flavors. She loved them, and it helped with the nausea. I just couldn't find them anywhere. I would bring her peppermints and Werther's, and Taffy. Every time I did, she would just have this look of disappointment would just come over her face, because they weren't her beloved Nips. 

 

Then one day, I called and I said, “What can I bring?” And her husband said, “Just bring yourself, but come soon.” I was standing in the heels that she had bought me, and I had a haircut that we got together. I was a different person because of the love that she'd given me. I had to find those bloody candies. So, I tried one more place that I hadn't been to, and it was The Food Emporium. It was a bloody emporium, like it had to be there. [audience laughter] So, I ran in, and there were two cashiers and they were deeply chatting. I just said, “Hi, ladies. Nips, the little sucking candies that come in different flavors.” They weren't listening, so I just said, “Nips.” [audience laughter] And then, one of the girls said, “What did you call me?” And the other one said, “I'll fall.” And I ran and they weren't there. 

 

And so, I bought roses, just delicate pink roses, because I had to bring something. When I got there, she was in and out, but she was awake and she heard me come in and she said in this very soft voice, “What did you bring me?” And I said, “Oh, just roses.” And she groaned, she said, “Huhhh.” I thought she was disappointed, and then I looked over and I saw that she was smiling, and so I picked up a rose and I brought it up to her nose and she did that groan again, this, “Huhhh.” I took the rose, and I painted her face with it, her cheeks and her forehead and her nose and her chin, and she kept groaning and I realized she wasn't in pain. She was soaking up the last of her life. 

 

She died a few days later, just shy of a month. She was always early and she was right, because the sun rose, and the traffic kept going, and the news came on at 06:00 and life, inexplicably to me, kept going. I knew that I would never, could never forget Margie. But she, in her own Jewish-American mother way, had found a way for me never to forget her either. Because from the day she died until today, all I seem to see are Nips. [audience laughter] They're everywhere. Thanks.