Malawi

July 12, 2006: Dana

I have grown to cherish my Sunday runs. They don’t happen every week, but when they do, they happen in the stillness of an African world that still considers Sunday a quiet, sacred time. For my purposes of my runs, this means that there is no traffic and fewer people on the roads. There is also molasses in the air, a lethargic sleepy feeling. So on Sunday mornings I always feel a sense of pride at the blood coursing through my veins, my heart beating fast, sweat running into my eyes. Like I am getting away with something while the whole works is asleep.

This past Sunday, as I ran and the sky dribbled rain, I held a memorial for Dana. I wasn’t even sure if Dana had died yet, but I had a feeling that she had. My sister had told me earlier in the week that they had put her on morphine, so I knew it would only be a few days. In any case, knowing her, I figured she would appreciate the peculiarity of a tribute, however measly, from Africa.

Dana grew up in a house just down the street from me in the suburbs of Atlanta. We went to the same elementary school and rode in carpool together every morning. Our families have always celebrated Christmas Eve together; my parents and hers have grown to be fast friends over the years (I especially credit them with my parents’ recently acquired taste for good wine).

Dana was a year younger than me in school, and we went to different high schools. When I moved to Texas 15 years ago, she went to the University of Georgia and eventually ended up back in Atlanta. But even though over the years we have grown apart, she has always seemed to symbolize the Atlanta that I left years ago – the one that remains comfortably the same and always feels like home.

The last time I saw her, in fact – on Christmas Eve of last year – Dana seemed pretty much the same as when she was a kid in carpool. Still bright-eyed, gregarious, animated and opinionated, it struck me that no matter whether she wasin second grade or the late stages of cancer, she could take over a room – or a station wagon – if given half a chance.

Of course, Dana had not stayed the same over the years, and especially for the last three. Since 2003, she has fought tooth-and-nail against liver and colon cancer, experiencing all of the attendant therapies and treatments, doctors and nurses, hopes and heartbreaks that struggle entails. Her family – her husband, mother, father and sister – absorbed themselves in the process – flying regularly to Houston and New York, researching new therapies and strategies, sacrificing their own plans, giving her every bit of support that they could.

Now they must go through the losing without her. I can’t imagine what that must be like, after all this time with her as the central point of their passion, love, work, and concern, to have Dana gone. it must mean a nearly intolerable ebbing and flowing swell of pain, sorrow, numbness, and relief.

And knowing them, thanksgiving. For her life, for her fight, for what she brought to their lives. And also for the glimmers of hope, even at death's door. My mom told me that, one day last week, Dana’s mom was with her, and they were both asleep on the bed.  Suddenly, Dana woke up and exclaimed, "They were all dancing." Her mom asked who, and she named all her relatives that had died before.
     
I can’t be there now, or even pretend to understand, so I am simply dedicating this slow Sunday run to her. Through my neighborhood, across the broken bridge, past a sad half-built hotel, and along a dirt road through cornfields. When I get to my turn-around spot, I head back along the same path again.

The sky is dripping rain, but there are splotches of blue among the dark clouds. As I head back down Sanjika road, a man I pass starts running beside me. He is an especially poor man; I can tell by his bare feet, dirty khaki trousers, and the old suit coat that I see is split way up the back when he strides out in front of me. We start up a hill, and I drop him, but he takes a while to give up – stopping and gasping, and then sprinting again to catch me when I turn around to check if he is coming.

Finally, he slows to a walk, smiles a great big smile, and waves goodbye.     

And I think about the world, and Dana, and all the ways that we are connected – from what must be a sad, sad day in the suburbs of Atlanta to this slow molasses Sunday in Malawi, Africa. And though I came a long way to Africa, I realize that Dana’s journey has taken her, in many ways, even further afield. But wherever she is, I am sure of what she is doing: Dancing with her relatives, laughing, and giving her opinion about her wacky life on earth to anyone willing to listen.