Stephen's Story, Part 1: December 14, 1994: A Flashback

This was not good.

Dinner was over, the dishes cleared from the table. My father was upstairs putting on a clean shirt. My brother, Stephen, was in front of the bathroom mirror, meticulously combing his hair into a side part that would inevitably fall straight forward as soon as it dried. I was on the couch with a history textbook, sighing and wallowing in teenage angst. My mother was on the telephone. And this call was not good.

She blanched and leaned forward against the counter, and her voice strained as she called upward to my father, through the kitchen ceiling, “Pick up the phone!” And then quieter, “I need you to pick up the phone.”

Stephen was in the sixth grade at Hendy Elementary School in Elmira, NY. A few days previous, he'd walked home from school, walked three blocks past home, and into the lobby of the bank where my mother worked as a teller. “Mom, my eye is crossed,” he'd said. Sure enough, it was.

So they'd gone to the optometrist, and he'd had a vision exam, and a neurologic exam (in this case, an MRI) just as a matter of course. We'd all assumed the worst – strabismus, a weakened or uncoordinated eye muscle – and that he'd have to wear an eye patch, or possibly even need surgery to correct this misalignment. Not good prospects for a soon-to-be middle-schooler enjoying his last year of childhood before the terrible tweens.

Of course, the worst turned out to be worse yet. This was the optometrist on the telephone, and he'd been struggling all afternoon with placing this call. Half-dialing, and hanging up, trying to compose a few words, maybe even jotting down a few on paper. Maybe trying to compose himself. The MRI scan had turned up a growth. A tumor. A large tumor, pressing on Stephen's optic nerve, causing his eye to cross. But this tumor wasn't anywhere near his eye. It was way down deep, in the middle of his brain.

Stephen had a holiday concert performance at his school that night. He'd be singing Christmas songs in the choir, and playing drums with the band and orchestra. He'd get to wear a button-down shirt, and goof around with his friends before and afterward.

How could we tell him, minutes before his concert, that everything had changed? We couldn't. So we didn't. We dressed for his concert, and he and my parents drove to the school. I walked. I needed to think, and I needed to smoke. (Cigarettes are the logical choice for coping with what was very likely a cancer diagnosis, right?)

We sat through the concert, numb, and clapped when the songs ended, and smiled when Stephen made eye contact with us. An Oscar-winning performance on all of our parts. If Stephen suspected anything, he never let on.

Afterward, we went home, and sat him down on the couch. My parents told him what was going on. We all had a big, soggy, messy, puddly cry together, something straight out of a Lifetime made-for-TV movie. Only this was real, and it felt just awful.

And thus, the story behind "Buzz for Bubbers" was set in motion.

Click here to read further installments of Stephen's Story:

Stephen's Story, Part 2: Wait, what?
Stephen's Story, Part 3: Chemo for Christmas
Stephen's Story, Part 4: There goes the hair
Stephen's Story, Part 5: Radiation and Ronald

Stephen's Story, Part 6: A Happy Birthday
Stephen's Story, Part 7: Great Danes and Paper Cranes

Stephen's Story, Part 8: Promises
Stephen's Story, Part 9: The Long Journey
Stephen's Story, Part 10: Requiem 

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