Jan. 26: The Middle Place

Today I finished reading The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan. A description from Amazon:

Newspaper columnist Corrigan was a happily married mother of two young daughters when she discovered a cancerous lump in her breast. She was still undergoing treatment when she learned that her beloved father, who'd already survived prostate cancer, now had bladder cancer. Corrigan's story could have been unbearably depressing had she not made it clear from the start that she came from sturdy stock. Growing up, she loved hearing her father boom out his morning HELLO WORLD dialogue with the universe, so his kids would feel like the world wasn't just a safe place but was even rooting for you. As Corrigan reports on her cancer treatment—the chemo, the surgery, the radiation—she weaves in the story of how it felt growing up in a big, suburban Philadelphia family with her larger-than-life father and her steady-loving mother and brothers. She tells how she met her husband, how she gave birth to her daughters. All these stories lead up to where she is now, in that middle place, being someone's child, but also having children of her own. Those learning to accept their own adulthood might find strength—and humor—in Corrigan's feisty memoir.

I bought the book while shopping with Sherilee in November, just before my diagnosis. It appealed to me because of the father-daughter relationship element, and also the general idea of the book itself: living in that middle place, between being someone’s kid and someone’s parent. The book ended up shoved in a bookcase during the holidays, and I just discovered it the other day when I was looking for something new to read.

Now that I’m fighting cancer myself, I thought I could relate to the book even better than when I purchased it. But it turns out that I related to it a little bit too well. Reading it put me in a blue mood. I think it was that Corrigan put into words a lot of the things I’ve been feeling and unable to express or even understand. Most difficult, though, was that she wrote about things I hadn’t even considered before—things relating to her children and family’s futures.

On top of the challenge of regaining her own health, her frustration with watching her dad deal with his cancer diagnosis was also something with which I could identify. In the years my dad had leukemia, I remember feeling so out of the loop because every few months I’d get a call that he was suddenly in the hospital. Often I would have just talked to him a day or two before, one of our normal catching-up conversations in which he’d not mentioned upcoming appointments, feeling unwell, etc., even though I asked about his health a hundred different ways. Grrr. At least there was a happy-ish ending to Mr. Corrigan’s story.

I loved the style of Corrigan’s writing, and I enjoyed the way the book alternated between the cancer fight and Kelly-and-Dad stories from her childhood. I appreciated her honesty and how she seemed unafraid to admit her faults and human-ness. I think what bothered me about the book—and this is nothing against her, it’s simply the way her story bounced around my brain—is that it gave me a “why me?” feeling.

Ever since my cancer diagnosis I’ve followed doctors’ orders and taken every step I should to get myself better. People say how strong and brave I am, but I don’t have a choice, do I? I mean, my only other option would be to let it go, let the cancer spread to the rest of my body, and die. Right? I don’t have a death wish. I’ll do whatever I need to get this in remission and be healthy again.

But somehow, reading about someone else dealing with cancer—right at this moment, while I’m dealing with it myself—made me see it more objectively. It seemed scarier than I have thought my own experience is. It seemed more dire. I didn’t like that part at all. In that way, I guess it probably wasn’t the best book for me to read right now. Although Corrigan is now cancer-free, her story drained me emotionally.

I recommend the book, definitely, but maybe just to the healthier folk in my life.