Tree trunk on the street

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When Victor was in the hospital the other day, a young doctor asked him if he had had any serious health problems in the past year. Supposedly reading his extensive medical history over the last twenty years had stunned her. Or maybe she just wanted to test his memory. Anyway, she scowled at me as Victor gleefully stated, “Something more? No, everything is okay!” I gave him a frown. He was clearly embarrassed by our reaction: “What is it?” – he asked.

Was he serious? It looked like this. “Ahem, you had cancer last year, remember? And an allergic reaction to chemotherapy. And semiparalysis of the facial nerve. And a failed eye surgery.

“Ah, that’s…!” He waved it off. Then he smiled sheepishly at the doctor, who was still standing on the edge of his bed, waiting and increasingly confused. “It’s all over now,” he said innocently. “That’s not true anymore!”

A few weeks later, during a reading, the host asked me if I was an optimist by nature, or if the American “yes we can” mentality was passed on to me. Answer: none. My nature is rather melancholic and doubtful. I tend to sink into dark thoughts. But constant thinking about the traumas they have suffered does not heal them and also does not please them. So I learned, so to speak, for the purpose of self-defense, to take a step back from the abyss in time, to lead my running thoughts away from darkness. And then life brought Victor to me, a true master of cheerfulness.

“Remember last week I went to Mount Tam to paint?” he asked me when the doctor had gone. I nodded. What was he aiming for?

“Suddenly there was half a tree on the road and I couldn’t go any further.”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

“Even!” He beamed at me like I had just taken a test and I had no idea what he was trying to tell me.

“I mean, the tree didn’t matter! I got out and pulled it to the side of the road, and then I was nearly run over by a group of mountain bikers and got a splinter in my thumb too. But that wasn’t it. It was about mountain, clouds and a view of the bay. It was about the pictures I drew and the hot dog I ate on the way back. Not the tree in the street.”

– You mean cancer…?

“It was just an obstacle in the way. Nothing else.”

Which doesn’t mean we weren’t overwhelmed by the diagnosis back then. Of course, we cried, and I, at least in private, quarreled with fate. You cannot pretend that life is made up of sunshine and butterflies. In between, it rages so violently that entire trees are uprooted. Viktor cursed too as he dragged the tree trunk out of the way. But by the time he got to the top of the mountain and unpacked his paint box, he had already forgotten about it. It probably would have taken me a little longer, I would definitely grumble at the reckless bikers. But then the magic of the day would overtake me. On the mountain. Or in the hospital.

Source: Blick