the Gift

“If there is gift, the given of the gift (that which one gives, that which is given, the gift as given thing or as act of donation) must not come back to the giving (let us not already say to the subject, to the donor). It must not circulate, it must not be exchanged, it must not in any case be exhausted, as a gift, by the process of exchange, by the movement of circulation of the circle in the form of return to the point of departure. If the figure of the circle is essential to economics, the gift must remain aneconomic. Not that it remains foreign to the circle, but it must keep a relation of foreignness to the circle, a relation without relation of familiar foreignness. It is perhaps in this sense that the gift is impossible. Not impossible but the impossible. The very figure of the impossible.” Derrida, Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money

I have been thinking a lot about gifts in the last week, and about Derrida’s recasting of the gift as the “figure of the impossible.”After all, what is my life now, if not impossible? And yet it is paradoxical, right, because in its absolute impossibility there is life itself. There is tension and extraordinary generosity and absolute terror. And much of that has taken the form of a gift, of sorts. I have received many gifts in the short time that has elapsed since my breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy, and I want to talk about several of those here, today. I want to talk about “the gift” in part because I am an awkward recipient. There’s more work to do there. And I want to think about “giving” because I am so blown away by the huge blanket of love and support and kindness that so many peopled have stitched together around me. It holds me together, your generosity, literally and figuratively.

Let’s take today. Today my drains came out. OMG I hate/d my drains. Two surgical drains came home with me, in me, sticking out of my chest and draping down my body ending in vacuum sealed pouches that needed, daily, to be emptied and the contents measured and classified (by me, here recast as “Junior Scientist”) as to colour and so on. How utterly alien a way to enact the hospital homecoming, already more than half-cyborg. I was terrified the drains would catch on something every time I moved anywhere in the house, let alone outside of the house. Well today, Sz came over from Galiano to hang out with me, including to hold my hand while the home nurse pulled the drains out. And Sz is really squeamish. What an amazing gift - to be there, beside me, while the nurse carefully cut the stitches and pulled out the, oh, about one foot of tubing that was coiled up inside the surgical area. One drain per side. Twice the trouble and twice the fun. And it hurt. Oh yeah. It really hurt.

And then there is the gift of the “drain apron”. Speaking of these dreadful post-surgical drains, my neighbour, J, gave me an apron to carry my drains around “hands free” several days ago when I was ranting on about how hard it was to go anywhere and take the drain apparatus with me. The apron get-up worked really well for the drains because I could slip the ends into the pockets and then I used these cool velcro strips that Janice and Stuart got for me at Home Depot to attach the tubing to the apron ties. Stuart, by the way, came here last week, arriving the day before the surgery, to be a helpful friend. Imagine what that would be like! The gift of presence is, in this time, as always, maybe, of incalculable value. I think it takes courage to show up and hang out for my mastectomy.

My friend B gave me the means to create a safe way to sleep with my drains. B gave me a long bolster pillow for the bed that was incredibly helpful in my creation of what I called, the Chute. The presence of the drains meant that I couldn’t turn even once during sleep. Turning could have got my arms or body all tangled up with the drains, which even if it hadn’t yanked the stitched tubing right out of my chest, would have hurt like hell. So rather than sleep in a recliner, which would have worked, but kept me way too far away from Janice, I created the chute. A pile of pillows kept my body half upright, the the bolster pillow wedged me in on one side. Another blanket wedged in on the other side, and I was locked in for the night. I actually slept for seven nights like this, and stayed on my back all night long. And I slept. Thanks for the gift.

And there is a whole lot more. I will forget to mention something here. Mea culpa. Every day I have received flowers. Yesterday, a huge box came from my favorite organic grocery store that was jammed full of every possible food item that a recovering gal and her home-care buddies could ever hope to stuff into themselves. My work friend SP sent that box over, and even though we have never once done anything remotely domestic, like go grocery shopping together, SP knew excactly what kinds of food that I would most love to eat. And Y knew how to do just that same thing when I was in the hospital. She brought over a whole bag of lovely edibles that I munched on in-between hits of demerol and vicodin. L/L made me a huge casserole of my favorite kind of chili. WOW! My fridge is full.

There are signs everywhere of the impossible - of hope proffered during a time of desperation and fear, of love given freely in the most bleak and desolate landscape I could ever have imagined, of generosity and kindness and honesty and passionate, fierce affection. Likely we don’t need Derrida to help us to make sense of the gift. I am just an unrepentant theory nerd. But I do know that it is critical for me to accept these gifts as they arrive - naked and unadorned. The very figure of the impossible. I live with that. And your gifts are recasting that figure into something that moves, and with which I am so very happy and honoured to be moving. And for that gift, the gift of life itself, I am so terribly grateful.