When my sons were teenagers, I learned that my neighbors’ 13-year-old son, John, had leukemia. I had never encountered the word and went to the library and looked through the card catalog to find Doris Lund’s book, Eric. I read the book in one evening and sobbed and cried through the night and on and off for three days after that. I frightened myself with the guttural and primal sounds that came from beneath my diaphragm and went into the closet, afraid that the neighbors would hear and come knocking at my door. Lund had portrayed the painful process of watching her fit and athletic soccer-star son go through an acute leukemia diagnosis and treatment. Eric was diagnosed in 1967 and died in 1972 at the age of 22. Lund watched her husband’s face permanently change and shared her excruciating pain and sorrow through her book.
Overnight, I had crows’ feet around my eyes and aged about ten years. I didn’t know about hydration or moisturizers that may have mitigated the imprints on my face.
When I visited John’s grandmother who lived two doors down, I remember her shock in seeing me and she said, “You are old!” I didn’t think to tell her that when I learned that her grandson had leukemia, I read Doris Lund’s book, and cried cisterns of tears. Since then, John has been in remission, married, and has two children. The treatment protocol for childhood leukemia had improved over the years.
Over 60 years have passed and the worry lines on my forehead have deepened, there are more lines between my eyes, my nose has flattened somewhat, and there are dark spots on my face. I have accumulated large bags under my eyes, and remember being shocked when I noticed chin hairs, some black and some white. I purchased tweezers and remember a friend saying she bought a magnifying mirror to find them, so I bought one too.
I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130:
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.