When Life Suddenly Changes Course

Pop continues to surprise us with his resilience, gifting us with many jokes and shared memories. As Leon said, "He's giving us his best performance now."

Life has a way of flowing along its familiar path until, without warning, the current shifts entirely. This is where I find myself now.

Just over a week ago, I was in Manhattan celebrating the upcoming launch of an anthology I'm featured in. The morning began with a podcast taping, followed by a contributors' breakfast that left me buoyed by connections with truly remarkable women. It felt like one of those perfectly aligned days.

Leon accompanied me to the taping before heading to Brooklyn for a photography shoot. I went to visit a friend, savoring a beautiful spring day in the city.

Then everything shifted. Within an hour, Leon called with news that his father in London, already hospitalized with compromised health, might have only a few days to live.

What unfolded next was a blur of urgent motion: the rushed journey back to our woodland home, frantically packing essentials, rearranging Leon's previously scheduled flight, booking my own passage, attempting unsuccessfully to find same-day flights, and finally arriving at JFK by 5am the following morning to catch the earliest possible departure.

We landed in London feeling exhausted late on Thursday night and went directly to the hospital. Pop was alert and relatively spirited, which filled us with momentary relief but also confusion. How could we reconcile his present state with such a grave prognosis?

The medical reality has proven fluid. Pop's diagnosis is complex: colon cancer that has metastasized to his liver, compounded by blood cancer and early Alzheimer's. The timeline keeps shifting from "days" to "short months" to now "short weeks." Certainty feels like a luxury we no longer possess.

Our time at Guy’s Hospital unfolds in a rhythm of sitting with Pop, navigating difficult conversations about final wishes, untangling practical matters of banks and paperwork, all while our minds struggle to absorb that this is actually happening. The timing feels especially cruel for Leon, who lost his mother just five months ago, layering fresh grief upon barely healed wounds.

"It's a lot" has become my most used phrase.

Yet within the shadows of anticipatory grief, we've discovered unexpected light. Laughter frequently finds its way to Pop's bedside as cousins and aunties gather, the family instinctively forming a protective circle of care and memory. It’s not something I’m used to. Part of me wants to run from the flock, another part of me longs to be wrapped up in it.

We've carved out brief interludes to walk familiar London streets, revisit meaningful places, and connect with dear friends who've known us through different chapters.

Pop continues to surprise us with his resilience, gifting us with many jokes and shared memories. As Leon said, "He's giving us his best performance now." Still, we understand that harder days await.

We exist now in a strange liminal space, uncertain whether to remain in London indefinitely or return to New York temporarily. My thoughts oscillate between believing nothing matters except being present here and worrying about the practicalities of an extended stay - dwindling supplies of hormone medication, contact lenses, clothing, emotional reserves. All the things that simultaneously matter greatly and not at all. Time feels both endless and desperately finite.

I maintain that aging is a profound gift. Yet within this gift lie inevitable challenges, among them witnessing the decline of parents and loved ones further along life's path than ourselves. This experience carries a distinctive ache. A simultaneous punch to the gut and a deep piercing of the heart.

Plans are underway for Pop to return home for palliative care, though this transition demands thoughtful preparation and considerable arrangement. We find ourselves making decisions about a life that is not our own, a responsibility both necessary and uncomfortable to shoulder, especially for Leon.

What comes next remains unwritten. We can only meet each moment with as much presence as we can muster and hope that ease and peace will be found.