Crying In Publix

Cancer is terrible, and The Villages are actually great.

What do you buy on the worst grocery run of your life?

I got to explore this most unwelcome question a few weeks ago. My beloved mother Linda, having been diagnosed with cancer last year, passed away at home at the age of 64. She fought bravely and we were optimistic and things seemed to have been turning a corner. I know most people don’t think of losing someone to cancer as a sudden thing, but this was sudden and shocking. I still don’t really believe it is real.

I’m devastated to lose her so soon. She had been a grandma for the last few years, and thankfully had met my baby girl Ellie last fall in between treatments. Nothing brought her more joy than the smiles on her children and grandchildren’s faces. She always put her family’s needs and wants ahead of her own. She was organized, detailed, loved getting a good deal, warm, friendly, kind. It hurts to lose her just as I am learning the ropes of motherhood myself.

Before she passed, when it was clear that there was no treatment left that could help, we decided to bring Mom home from the hospital for hospice care. That’s not really the time you want to discover that there’s no milk in the fridge.

So, to Publix I went.

Photo by nrd on Unsplash

I always find myself trying to explain to non-Floridians why Publix is so great. My husband, who grew up in the Boston suburbs, does not understand it. He thinks it is a perfectly fine grocery store, but cannot fathom why it has a cult following.

When I try to make the case, there are obvious basic factors, like the fact that stores are usually clean and bright and well-stocked and well-organized. I assume there’s at least some part of it that is rooted in the comfort of nostalgia, memories of free sugar cookies at the bakery and so forth. But mostly, it is that the people are friendly and things just work, living up to their slogan “where shopping is a pleasure”.

If you’ve got to do an errand under horrible circumstances, Publix is a pretty good place to do it. That day, I really needed the friendliness of the nice man at the deli who wanted to be absolutely sure the turkey lunchmeat I’d requested was the right thickness. I needed the chatty checkout lady who, upon seeing the bouquet of flowers I was bringing home for Mom, had a whole story for me about how she can’t keep flowers because her cats eat them but she did attempt a “hyacinth situation” at one point and it was so-so. And I needed the nice bagger - because Publix always has a separate bagger - who kindly offered to help me take my groceries to the car.

No thank you, I can handle this, I said.

I can handle this. Right?

Photo by Dean on Unsplash

Doing things like buying groceries or planning a memorial all keep me busy and give me a sense of control - a false one, sure - which in turn provides comfort. And this week, I kept that “doing things” streak going. My radio show, which airs Saturday at 10 am on SiriusXM channel 124 (POTUS), is back and will feature two interviews this week on topics that are top-of-mind for me.

The first is an interview with Philip Bump of The Washington Post. He’s got a new book coming out about the Baby Boom generation and their effect on our politics. Think of it like a reverse, bizarro world mirror-image of The Selfie Vote. There’s an excerpt of his new book in Vanity Fair that focuses on The Villages, a place where I've spent a lot of my time this month.

While I was down there, I saw that my friend Robert Costa of CBS was covering former Vice President Mike Pence, who was going to be speaking in The Villages just a few minutes down the road. I hopped in the golf cart (seriously) and puttered down to the new Sawgrass Grove town square to grab a coffee and do a little people watching to get my mind off things.

Dave Scott @MarginCalled80

@costareports @SpeakerMcCarthy Imagine the traffic jam of motorized scooters leaving the rally.

I chuckled a little upon seeing this response to Costa’s tweet about his coverage, because The Villages is not motorized scooter land, or at least not from what I saw. I suppose if your perception of The Villages is mostly based on that once-ubiquitous decades-old TV ad you’d think so. And maybe at the northern end of The Villages, it’s more like that, because as Philip and I discuss in our interview that will air Saturday, The Villages is a massive, sprawling organism with many different parts, and the more newly developed portions have a younger resident population.

But the bottom line is that The Villages was lovelier than I had pictured and I can completely understand why someone would want to spend their golden years playing pickleball and going to the town square for live music and half-price beers every night and moseying around in the golf cart in 70-degrees-in-January weather. I’m sad Mom won’t get to enjoy it.

I don’t have much more to add besides my strong agreement with Bump’s assertion that you can’t be an introvert in The Villages. The south Orlando suburb where I grew up was friendly enough, but it is hard to imagine as many people bringing over big pots of pasta and meatballs or ringing the doorbell just to check in. Everyone was kind, everyone was friendly, everyone cared a lot. I feel better knowing that there’s a whole street of people who are going to be checking in on Dad and inviting him to dinner or game night or golf in the weeks and months to come.

Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash

The second interview on this week’s show is a conversation with Derek Thompson of The Atlantic (and host of The Ringer’s excellent podcast “Plain English”, tied for the honor of being favorite Ringer with “Ringer Fantasy Football Show” and the celebrity gossip podcast “Ringer Dish”).

Derek recently wrote about the decline in cancer mortality that we’ve seen here in the United States in the last few decades. The data suggest that much of this decline is due to better screening and prevention rather than better treatments, and that the reason fewer people are dying of cancer is that fewer are ending up in late-stage cancer where options are not great. On the show, we discuss the upsides and downsides of increased cancer screening, why so much money and effort goes into long-shot trials, and why it is so hard to conduct the kind of research you’d need to really find a miracle cure that could reduce someone’s cancer risk over the long term.

As Derek puts it:

Much of the decline in cancer mortality since the 1990s comes from upstream factors, such as behavioral changes and improved screening, even though the overwhelming majority of cancer research and clinical-trial spending is on late-stage cancer therapies. A cure for cancer might be elusive. But a moonshot for cancer screenings and tests might be the most important front in the future war on cancer.

It is my sincerest hope that none of you reading this newsletter will have to experience the heartbreak my family and I have these last few weeks. Saying goodbye to your parents is part of life, I suppose, but this is too soon and cancer is too cruel.

When Mom was going through treatment, one of the places where she found kindness was the organization Angel Wigs of Hope. She’d mentioned wanting to volunteer there one day when she got better. I find the world of cancer research or support charities to be huge and sprawling and overwhelming and I am totally at a loss when people ask me what they can support in honor of my Mom, but this local organization in The Villages was a comfort to my Mom when she needed it, and I hope they can provide that same support and love to other women who need it too.

Mom and me on my wedding day, 2012. Photo credit: Ashley McCormick

Sorry this is a bit of a rambling post and that I’m taking full advantage of the ability to meander in a newsletter as opposed to a more traditional 800-word column. I’ve learned a lot over the last few weeks - about hospice care, about the weird world of online obituaries, about saying goodbye when you’re not ready to. I know grief will come in waves.

But mostly, I’m grateful to all of you who have sent notes of support and love and encouragement. They have meant the world to me.

And if you are able to, please give your Mom a hug.