The Jet Blue lounge in Newark was noisy, packed and smelly like moldy carpet. Elliot and I were about to escape for Martin Luther King Day weekend. As the months of treatment wore on, we became more and more dependent on such happy goalposts beckoning to us from the calendar on the kitchen wall. Once I read that farmhands worked more diligently in the fields if they had markers along each row to measure their progress. They were motivated by the promise that if they could just make it to the next marker, they could rest. And then the next marker, and the next. So as soon as we got back from Paris, I booked this trip to Florida for a few months later.
Getting to the airport marked a personal triumph. We were supposed to come exactly one year earlier, but ended up in the ER instead when Elliot got that horrible bile obstruction. When I called the owner of the bungalow place in Captiva back then, he said he’d give back my deposit.
“Please keep it,” I told him. “We’re going to find another time to come.”
That was my vow that this obnoxious cancer wouldn’t boss us around. Back in my twenties, when I had been a reporter at The St. Petersburg Times and walked these gorgeous Gulf of Mexico beaches alone, I had sworn I would come back someday with a man I loved. I refused to give up that dream.
As we waited for our flight to be called, I flipped through a magazine with glossy pictures of luxury island resorts. Our destination was much more low-key and low-budget. No pool, hot tub or tennis court, just a clean room on the bottom of a two-story house with a door that opened on to the white Florida sand and the bright turquoise water. Jensen’s was owned by a family that also rented out cheap cabins next to a bait store on the bay side of the island, but I wanted to be on the Gulf, hearing the hypnotic crash of the waves.
“You know, Sweetie, this is a really simple place,” I cautioned. “There won’t be any amenities.”
“You’re my amenity,” Elliot said with a grin. “All the amenity I need.”
I scribbled his words down on the back of the white envelope that held our deposit receipt. It became a line in one of my periodic “good lists.” I wrote them while I was waiting to meet Elliot in a restaurant, see a doctor, or pick up a child from a birthday party. My lists typically had the same format – everything good on one side of a column, everything bad on the other, so I could see how they balanced out and try to get some perspective. They helped me stay grounded and grateful for whatever was going well.
I was in a great mood heading off on vacation. Contrary to my usual format, this good list had no counterpoint “bad” list.
“Good list Jan 17, 2008” had seven entries:
• On the way to Captiva!
• Kids are doing well in school, have friends, are healthy, generally get along.
• Devon said “enough with turning new leaves and New Year’s resolutions, you’re doing fine.” (After I resolved to spend more time one-on-one with each of the kids).
• I got a bonus for “Living with Cancer” stories.
• Elliot’s going to Italy with Aaron in February—fun for him, break for me!
• He’s so cute. Sees me writing this and says “I hope that’s not work. That would be a violation.”
• BOARDING NOW!!!
And so, exactly a year after our Captiva trip was originally supposed to happen, Elliot and I were settling into our seats on that flight to Sarasota, feeling giddy that we’d outfoxed fate.
It was too nippy for swimming, but we spent the days wandering along the sparkling water’s edge, picking up shells, admiring the seagulls and laughing at the clumsy pelicans. I took a picture of Elliot when he was reading in our tiny screened in porch, bundled up in his bright red University of Wisconsin sweatshirt. By sheer luck the photo’s lighting was perfect as he turned to smile at me, and the shot captured all the warmth, humor and sensitivity I saw in his face every day. In the photo he has Mona Lisa eyes too—they follow you wherever you stand. (I would one day use it for his memorial service, but I cropped out the book. I couldn’t bear the irony of the title. It was Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost.)
A few times on that trip we saw dolphins swimming just yards away. I remembered spotting dolphins in the far waves off Cape May, right after Elliot got sick, and thinking back then that it would be our last time seeing dolphins together. But here were some more playing right up close. Maybe their presence was proof we would keep enjoying pleasures I thought we had seen the last of, and I should stop obsessing about memorizing moments. Maybe there would be more than we thought, so we should just live them.
“I want to cram every possible opportunity into my life,” Elliot said one day at dusk as we sat together on a bench watching the sun set over the water. “This is an important time for us. Maybe we’d prefer eighty-five degrees, but this is beautiful. I’m a very lucky man.”
Later I wrote down Elliot’s words on my envelope with the good list. No matter what the dolphins seemed to signify, I had to make sure I remembered.