Warriors

It has been four long weeks since I sent in the DNA samples, a test to see if I am a perfect match for my brother who is fighting an aggressive cancer, likely brought on by his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam war.

In the meantime I have gone about acting as if everything is normal. I go to my drawing classes on Mondays, yoga 3 times a week, tai chi on Thursdays. I stay in touch with the kids. I manage the over-dry yard and lousy garden. I cook interesting things for myself while my husband is gone to Japan with a class that he leads. I avoid all images of death, harbingers of ill luck. But it's like a radio has been turned on in the back of my brain, and it plays incessantly....noise...noise that I defend myself against.

Then last week in figure drawing class the model who showed up, smiling, was a breast cancer survivor. She was so beautiful. The radio in my head went silent.

I must regress.

My brothers were like the three musketeers, a unit, until Jim (on the left) died in a motorcycle accident. Jon, in the middle, and Jeff on the right, grew up to be drafted into the army. Jon, assigned with the terrible task of driving ammo trucks, signed up for an additional 6 months of duty to prevent his younger brother Jeff from being in the even-worse job of infantryman.  There is a law that says siblings don't have to be in war zones at the same time.

Decades later Jeff pleads with doctors to let him be the donor of stem cells to cure Jon's Agent Orange cancer, but they say he isn't a match. Jeff cannot repay the favor of life. My heart bleeds for him.

But can I?

I carried candles in peace marches. I did not join the army. And I am a female. But I want to take the DNA test anyway.

Sometimes close, sometimes at odds, Jon and I are are a strange twosome in this battle. Our personalities are unlike.

This morning while I was in yoga  a voice message came from Wisconsin. I am a full match for my brother Jon. Sometime in the next 3 months I will give my stem cells to him. A nurse will call me in a week or two.

Today I skipped figure drawing class and stayed home to imagine myself in "warrior two pose," where I feel strongest of all. Invincible, really. I drew myself over and over.

Can you imagine how happy he was when I called to give him the news? He volunteered the information that perfect-match-blood-cells will hunt and kill cancer cells in his body, like soldiers. After all of these years, I too have become a warrior. At long last it is a war that I am prepared to fight.