Bearing bad news

It's interesting to see how different people take serious news. Some just listen numbly. Some assume you must need comfort and immediately become very solicitous. Some laugh it off. Some find a way to make it all about themselves.

I've seen enough of these different reactions over the year that none of them really surprises me any more. This weekend I got to see two more of them. After writing my previous post, I felt restless. monshu hadn't gotten up like he usually does, so there was no one in the house to talk to and I decide to wander over to Touché just to remind people I exist. I saw only a handful I knew and was getting ready to come right back home when I turned a corner and ran into Diego.

I couldn't think of decent transition to the topic, so after a few minutes of pleasantries I artlessly blurted out, "monshu has cancer." "Oh no!" he responded and answered my elaborations with heartfelt but restrained expressions of sympathy. When we ran into him at the grocery store today, he made a point of telling the Old Man he'd been informed and wishing him well. I tried to make light of all the medical appointments we had ahead of us, but he misunderstood my intention (as did the GWO, so the fault was clearly mine) and made what can only be described as a friendly threat.

Then this morning we met up with Scruffy for brunch. He didn't notice anything amiss as he drove us over to Nookies, so it wasn't until we were all seated in a corner booth that he asked monshu, "So how have you been?" We shared a meaningful glance and then he laid it all on him. Scruffy took it all in without saying much of anything and then almost immediately changed the subject. As we were parting, we clumsily explained that, if we did have a Hogmanay celebration this year, it would likely be a small affair. "Well, just let me know," he said before leaving to meet a friend.

I don't fault him for not having the same response as Diego. They're entirely different people--both very smart but, to quote Scruffy (in reference to me), "Smart in different ways." He's a mathematician and a former professional comedian, so while he can talk about difficult subjects, it's always with a fair amount of emotional reserve. Culture plays a role as well (he's from Cincinnati; Diego is Californian) and possibly age. Many men, particularly those somewhat older than me, aren't adept at discussing life-or-death matters.

For my part, I'm trying to keep the whole process from becoming too rote. I'm impatient for this just to be a thing everyone knows (or, better, a thing nobody really needs to know, because we're just living with it the same way he lives with hypertension or I live with gout). But then I think I'm getting ahead of myself, viewing things as more settled and certain than they actually.