I heard a very inspiring play on Radio 4 on Tuesday afternoon. “The Waiting Room†by the writer Julia Darling who died from metatastic breast cancer last year. Much of what she wrote corresponded uncannily to my own feelings and situation. I’ve been recommending that people should listen to it on the Radio 4 listen again facility but haven’t yet succeeded in getting anyone to do so. (Click here to listen – but only until 23 Jan as the BBC just allow us to listen for 7 days)
Here’s one of her poems I wish I’d written. I am particularly taken by the lines: “Don’t say “How are you?†in/an underlined voice.†I also dislike being talked to in that underlined voice.
How To Behave With The Ill
Approach us assertively, try not to
cringe or sidle, it makes us fearful.
Rather walk straight up and smile.
Do not touch us unless invited,
particularly don’t squeeze upper arms,
or try to hold our hands. Keep your head erect.
Don’t bend down, or lower your voice.
Speak evenly. Don’t say
‘How are you?’ in an underlined voice.
Don’t say, I heard that you were very ill.
This makes the poorly paranoid.
Be direct, say ‘How’s your cancer?’
Try not to say how well we look.
compared to when you met in Safeway’s.
Please don’t cry, or get emotional,
and say how dreadful it all is.
Also (and this is hard I know)
try not to ignore the ill, or to scurry
past, muttering about a bus, the bank.
Remember that this day might be your last
and that it is a miracle that any of us
stands up, breathes, behaves at all.
Just wanted to say hello.
I was thinking about you and how you were getting on and found your blog.
Best wishes
Amanda
Elaine, please let me know how you are… can you contact me by email?
Thanks so much for posting the link to the radio programme, Elaine. I had been looking for it and was unable to locate it. My husband was working on Julia’s last show when she died. She came to the dress rehearsal with her family and was very pleased with her work and how Northern Stage had interpreted it for stage. I think one of Julia’s best qualities was her ability to bring us into the here and now. A rare gift.
One difference between Elaine and me in our choice of listening and viewing has always been what I call her “dead baby and serial killer morbidity”. Elaine has alway been drawn to programmes which deal with the dark, unpleasant dimension of humanity, hospitals and unusual suffering; hence her interest in Sylvia Plath. I recognise that for Elaine this is probably a positive thing, helping to make sense of the cruel world.
My idea of enjoyment and recreation when not working did not used to be programmes on cancer. And now my partner’s world has been overtaken by this disease, do I really want to listen to a radio play about someone dying of cancer? Even though I know such programmes can be uplifting and helpful.
Yet I’ve just listened to “The Waiting Room” and I am really glad I did. The author comes across so vibrant and full of the joys of life. It re-enforces the feeling that just because someone is ill, she is still the same person she always was. The play is interspersed with uplifting songs written by Julia Darling who starts off describing her youth being a feminist and engaging in activities such as “Reclaim the Night”.
Many of her feelings echo Elaine and ours. She talks of the real “Oh shit moment” when she is given bad news and remarks that there is an awful lack of hope among the medical practitioners. So often she wants to go off and live in “pretending land”.
Like Elaine, she lives in a “vibrant community of makers, thinkers, smilers and people who join in”.
When things improve, she is not completely sure whether it is because of the drugs they have given her, or because of her healer, the poetry she has just written or something as simple as blueberries.
Cancer is a “disease of mountains and ditches”.
I love radio drama, and this is radio drama at its best – but you will end up crying!
“Remember that this day might be your last
and that it is a miracle that any of us
stands up, breathes, behaves at all.”
As the poptastic Smashie would say, “Wise words, mate.”