This is More Fun

What do cancer and earrings have in common?

Check out the latest creative writing piece by Marquette Magazine featured writer Dawn Adamson.

For quite some time I have been visiting a young woman with a terminal disease.  In the past, I would join her for tea, a wicked game of cribbage or scrabble.  I haven’t spent time with her since November because in my job I am exposed to every Tom, Dick and Harry…. well no, every known shared virus in upstate New York.  (I think every Tom, Dick and Harry would have been more fun.)

My time with her was to give her mom a much needed break and chance to get errands done.  My time with her was not time with her.  My time with her was time with a friend.  A time to laugh, because apparently I am funny.

One day, it was a hard day for her.  All her hair was gone and she felt ugly.  She looked at me and said, “All I ever wanted to do was fall in love.”

That is what I wanted as well.  As I sat there, thinking of the right response, all I could come up with was, “Never underestimate the power of a pair of earrings.”  Earrings?  “And lipstick.  My grandmother taught me never leave the house without earrings or checking your lipstick.”  I cleaned off my favorite earrings and gave them to her.

My visits after that I was earring-less and lipstick-less.  Where are your earrings?  I can’t keep the two of them together.  Just ask my friend Michael.  As a present he hunted down the matches to my single earrings.  And where are those?  Please don’t tell him, I lost one but have managed to keep the special pair that live in a box and on my ears with frequent checks.

For the past week, I have come home to a box on my doorstep.  I am now the proud owner of five sets of earrings.

I drove to her house to thank her but told her mom I wouldn’t come in.  We decided to have a conversation through the window.  This conversation started with me attempting to thank her through her front window.

Thank you!  I am sick with a stupid cold.  This was done with several arm motions and a staged cough, sneeze and wiping my nose.

You are welcome.  I am sick with stupid cancer.  This was done with several arm motions……. and a middle finger.

She then wrote a note to me and taped it against the window.

I went to my car and got a pen and paper and replied.

This went on for a bit.

You look cold.

Well, yes, it’s windy and cold.  We could make this easier and I could call you?

No, this is more fun.

It is, isn’t it?

You look scary in your ski mask, the neighbors are going to think you are a peeper.

I’m not a peeper, I’m an earring thanker.

This is more fun.  You were put here for a purpose.

A purpose?  To freeze in the wind and snow and show you I love my earrings?

Stupid germs.
Stupid cancer.

Earrings, notes on a front window, wind, snow…….. this is more fun.

This was more fun.

And we talked on the phone the whole ferry ride home.

If you see me with earrings, now you know where they came from.

by Dawn Adamson

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