My Journey with Farrah - Alana Stewart [44]
I’m sitting here eating, feeling tears well up in my eyes. It’s such a dreary, depressing day. Will the sun ever come back to Bavaria for more than a day? Will it ever come back into Farrah’s life and mine? Funny, as I’m writing this the sun is just trying to break through the clouds, maybe for the third time in two weeks. Everything looks brighter—the trees, the grass, the sky. Perhaps it’s a sign from God that it’s all going to turn around. I know I need to be positive—to be strong for both of us. But I just feel so damned sad. I guess anyone would.
Farrah came back to the hospital room around three. I expected her to be much worse than she was. She didn’t even seem to be in terrible pain but obviously was still being given a lot of drugs. Within a couple of hours, she was hungry. I went out to buy strudel, but the little pastry shop was closed on Thursdays. So I went back to the Schlössel and got some second-rate strudel there. We scarfed it down with tea and spent the rest of the evening trying to find something edible for dinner. They seem to be big on bread and cheese here in the hospital.
As always, I was blown away by Farrah’s recuperative powers. Although she was a little slurry from the pain medication, we were filming, laughing, and joking about the food and the mean nurse, who of course didn’t speak one word of English. Which is a good thing, considering the names we were calling her. It looked like Farrah was going to drop-kick the nurse when she tried to touch her. Though she’s been so upbeat, I know there are days when she must doubt her faith and get angry with God for letting this happen to her. She always tries to see the greater good in her going through this, but there are moments, like this one, when her faith is pushed to the limits. If it were me, I’d probably be ripping people’s heads off.
June 14, 2008
Another gray day. I slept in the hospital with Farrah, and we actually managed to sleep from midnight till 10 A.M., an unheard-of feat in a hospital, where they usually come cheerily in around 5 A.M. and wake you up. I put a sign on the door last night saying “Do Not Disturb” in every language I could think of. I guess “Verboten” did it, because not a soul bothered us.
Farrah woke up in a lot of pain, so I don’t know if we’ll go “home” today. Scary that I’m starting to think of the clinic as home. I think I’ll go crazy if we don’t get out of this hospital soon.
This week has passed so fast I’ve hardly thought about Mimmo. I feel he really cares about me, but I’m pretty sure he puts himself, along with his fitness, his tanning, his pedicures, and his biking, before me. When I told him about my cancer, he didn’t seem to have much of a reaction, which surprised me. After all, it’s cancer, not a hangnail. We never talked about it again, and it left me feeling let down and disappointed. And he hasn’t been begging to come and sit by my bedside this past week when I’ve been so sick. Maybe all men are like this—certainly a lot of the ones I’ve known are, especially when it comes to “female problems.” As long as you’re up, fun, looking great, and sexy, they’re right there. But when you’re down, I’m not sure a lot of them really know how to show up for you. That’s where your girlfriends come in. They’ll hold your hand when you’re crying and your head when you’re throwing up.
When I think about it, my friendship with Farrah has outlasted any of my relationships with men. I have never survived thirty years with one guy—and frankly, I’m not sure I could. And even more incredible is that during those thirty years, we’ve only fought twice—both times over her being late