9/11, British-style

Non-knit

My sister-in-law does have cancer. Ovary and bowel. She will have surgery today.

She is a depressive character, sharp-tongued, defensive. She has had a lot to suffer in life, including a rotter for a husband. I don’t think, in the 52 years I have known her, I have ever seen her in such high spirits as yesterday. My husband was worried at how much weight she had lost. I was expecting that, and had feared much worse. She looked well. She likes the hospital, its cleanliness, the doctors, the banter, the food.

She told us that the news was “not good”, and declined to discuss it further until she had had a chance to talk to her daughter, who works a particularly long day on Monday. There were clues, including the fact that something was going to happen today, but no specifics. Her daughter came to see us in the evening, after she left the hospital, where she had been able to talk to a doctor as well as to her mother. A very much appreciated visit, rather than telling us by telephone.

This is an ordeal I had long hoped my husband would be spared. He loves his sister unconditionally. Her love for him is tempered by being younger and made to feel in childhood that he was bigger and cleverer and preferred.

We are five – in descending order of age, my husband, his sister, myself, my sister, and – so young as nearly not to count – her husband. My sister and I have some first cousins, but they are substantially younger and I don’t know them very well anyway. Obviously, one of the horrors of old age is going to be mourning each other and it would be a lot to ask of providence to take us in order. But that’s what one sort of expected.

One has to hope that C. will accept chemotherapy. Some people get a substantial remission.

So, not much knitting. I’m half-way across the long cast-off. I put it aside and knit Matt’s socks for a while last night. Nothing like socks.