Episode 33: Book Report - “Marrow”
While sister stories are everywhere, it is rare to find a cancer memoir that focuses on the sister relationship between two adults. Elizabeth Lesser has filled that gap with her stunning memoir “Marrow” that chronicles her experience being a bone marrow donor for her sister, Maggie. Today on the podcast we share what we loved about the book - and why timing is sometimes everything when it comes to a good read.
SHOW NOTES
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Sources and Further Reading:
The author’s website: “Marrow” by Elizabeth Lesser
Omega Institute, cofounded by Elizabeth Lesser
Also mentioned:
The phrase “have the best holiday, week, etc available to you” is from the wonderful podcast, Pantsuit Politics
TRANSCRIPT
Kayla 0:09
You're listening to the My Sister’s Cancer podcast. I'm Kayla Crum, registered nurse and writer.
Ella 0:15
And I'm Ella Beckett, social worker and cancer survivor.
Kayla 0:20
We're sisters on a mission to care for the cancer community through the sharing of real life stories, a sprinkle of sass, and lots of support.
Ella 0:28
Join us in a new kind of pity party. It's a pity so many of us carry the heavy burden of cancer alone. So let's make it a party and carry it together.
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Ella 0:42
Welcome back to the My Sister's Cancer podcast. This is your co-host, Ella Beckett, here as always with my sister, Kayla Crum. We first just wanted to say that we're so glad that you're here. Before we jump into today's episode, we just wanted to put out a last reminder for anyone who might be interested in joining us as a guest on the podcast. Um, about a month from now, we're going to be having a special episode where we would love to include anyone's voice or just written submission or anything like that. If you feel like you have a part of your story that you want to share, whether you've had cancer or a loved one has had cancer, we would just love to hear from you if you are willing to be a part of that episode. So feel free to reach out to us on Instagram @mysisterscancer. You can send us an email: hello@mysisterscancer.co and we would love to connect with you about potentially being a part of that episode. So this week, if you have been listening along for a while, you will remember that we choose a book to sort of kind of do a little book report on, so to speak, each season. And this week we are talking about the book called “Marrow” by Elizabeth Lesser. And this book is actually a sister story, a sister cancer story. So it feels very relevant to us and to our story. And so that's part of why we picked it. Um, and we're just really excited to kind of dive into this book and some overarching themes and just some of the takeaways for us as sisters who have also experienced a cancer story. So Kayla, you originally were the one who found this book. I would love to hear a little bit about your reaction, maybe specifically the first time that you read this book.
Kayla 2:39
So I first found this book back in 2018. I keep a reading log, uh, like the true reading nerd that I am. So I actually could look back and figure this out. It was May of 2018, so you had your transplant about six months before that. And I'm someone who likes to read as a coping mechanism. I like to mix it up between fiction to escape what I'm going through, and then I also like to find non-fiction reads that, you know, provide some insight or apply to what I'm going through. And I could not find a sister cancer memoir. I think we've all heard of “My Sister's Keeper,” which is the fictional Jodi Picoult novel and movie about a girl who is basically created and born to be her sister's perfect bone marrow match. I enjoyed that story or found it thought-provoking way back before I was ever a part of “cancer world” in a personal sense, but to me, that wasn't what I was looking for. I wanted some real insight into the sister experience of cancer, and everything I could find was either figurative sisters - there's a lot of language around especially breast cancer; there's like a sisterhood community out there, which is great, but again, not what I was looking for. Or there's resources for like, young kids who have siblings. This is part of why I started My Sister's Cancer, because I couldn't find a lot of sibling resources for adults. But I think it was a coworker of mine - because I was still working on the cancer floor at the time, who recommended “Marrow” to me, and she found it really moving and insightful. And we generally had similar taste in books. And so I trusted that recommendation. Now, the funny thing about this book is that it made me really angry the first time that I read it, and so I think I was not ready for it. It's not a spoiler to say that the sister with cancer dies. She says that right on, like, the first page. I think that that in and of itself probably should have been a red flag for me. Like maybe you're not ready six months post-transplant to read a whole memoir about it where it doesn't work for this person's sister? I look back and I'm like, I was not very self-aware back then. And the other piece I think that made me angry is the writer, Elizabeth Lesser, is known for I think something called the Omega Foundation. We’ll link to it in the show notes, but she is like a leader and a speaker in sort of the spiritual thought space and hosts spiritual type conferences and things. So think like Oprah, New Age type stuff, and it's interwoven with God. And like, I have faith in God as like a Christian. So it's not like I was mad that she wasn't, you know, my brand of faith. She just was asking a lot of big, thought-provoking questions and I was not there yet. Okay, so when I read this six months after your transplant, you were still barely walking. I mean, you were walking, but like, your feet were giving you a lot of trouble. I don't even remember how much your hair had grown back, like it was very fresh. And so I just think I wasn't ready for someone to, like, zoom out and be like, “Oh, here's how my soul matured through this journey. And then my sister died.” Like I was not ready. However, the book was beautifully written and I always appreciate a good writer as someone who writes and reads myself. And it stuck with me enough that when we were discussing what book to do for this podcast, I was like, maybe I need to revisit that book. So it wasn't black and white. It's not like I threw it across the room. I finished it, I read the whole thing, but I just remember for the reasons I explained, just not clicking with it at the time. And I'm so glad we revisited it, because this time it was very meaningful to me and really brought up a lot of the stuff that now, six years post-transplant, not six months, but six years, a lot of this resonated with me or even made me think deeper about things that we experienced. So I highly recommend it. We're going to unpack more of the themes, but I would just say, A) the sister does die. So if you're not in a place to read about that, please just save it for another time. I wish I had. And B) I mean, you have to sort of gauge: are you ready to sort of take that zoomed out soul, spiritual perspective on the cancer journey, or are you still so close to it that the sort of woo woo talk is going to just annoy you? Because that's what happened to me the first time. I was like, I'm just trying to like, make sure my sister, you know, stays alive. Like, I don't have time to think about all this soul stuff. And maybe some people are better at that earlier than I was, I wasn't in a very healthy mental health space. Well, I'm excited that we came back to it because it's a super valuable book at the right time. So this was your first time reading it, right? So did you hear about it just from me? And then what was your experience or your main emotion, I guess, reading it?
Ella 8:23
Yeah, I had never heard of this book before. This is the first time that I came across it. Honestly, as you were talking about like, the timing piece of it… Being six years out from transplant, I think this was exactly the right time to read this book. I too think that a lot of this content would have hit different were I closer to transplant than I am now. So I'm in many ways, I'm glad that I read it now so far down the road, because I think I was able to resonate with a lot of what she was saying and see the value in a lot of the - I love how you said “woo woo” stuff. Um, the spiritual, you know, soul-deep questioning. I think I'm in a headspace where I was able to kind of process through that and take a lot away from a lot of what she was discussing, if that makes sense. But I definitely think if I had read this book even two, three years ago, I probably would have struggled a lot more with some of what she was saying. I was struck by a lot of things, I think because we've been doing this podcast and because we've been having these conversations like, I think our relationship has been somewhat focused on our cancer experience, and we've kind of reexamined some things, right, of our experience and how our relationship has changed or our family dynamic has changed. And it was just so interesting to hear another sister's story and how cancer really deeply impacted their relationship in many ways for the better. And we'll probably get to more of that later, too. But I was just - there was a lot of things that I was really deeply moved by.
Kayla 10:17
I also think that part of it for me was there's so much reflection that I was maybe more looking for the story and the logistics of cancer, which is interesting because I think if you had asked me back then, I would have said I wanted some sort of reflection. But I think I wanted to feel seen in the day-to-day nitty-gritty of what we were going through. And this is not a super detailed, nitty-gritty book. She does talk about the experience of having her marrow harvested for her sister, but it's not like a super medical or detailed book. And I think that was also what I was expecting. So part of it is just expectation. When you go into a book and then it's different. Um, but I'm really glad you liked it and I'm glad it was the right time for you. One thing to pull out is that it truly is a sister novel. So not just in relation to the cancer, but I like how Elizabeth Lesser gives us background from her childhood and their relationship growing up. Her and her sister, they're actually two of four sisters. There's a little bit of like, “Little Women” comparisons there. She just is very open about the good and the bad of their relationship and how they had hurt one another and come back together. And I just think that's a great approach, because we like to compartmentalize cancer. But just like everything else, you bring your whole self and the whole relationship you have into the cancer world with you, and then it will emerge changed. But like, it's not like you can just sweep everything else under the rug when one of you gets cancer, it's like all that baggage, um, comes with you. So I really liked all of the non-cancer history that she gave us too.
Ella 12:22
Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think one of the things that I also really liked about the book was the way that it was structured. She broke it up into six different parts. And then obviously there's like chapters within those parts, but the whole entire first part is all about like the sisters and their growing up and just kind of the dynamics and it's called “The Girls.” I agree with you, I think that full context was really important for us to get a better understanding of who these sisters even are before cancer even entered the narrative. I love how you said like - like cancer affects the whole self and you're bringing all of you to those relationships in the midst of cancer. So I think it's really important to get that whole background. And one of the parts is titled “The Marrow of the Self.” And I think this is the part of the book that really stood out the most to me. Now, I think this is interesting because I think this is largely where a lot of the woo woo, philosophical, spiritual stuff really came in. But the whole premise really is that as they learn that her sister Maggie is going to need this bone marrow transplant, Elizabeth sort of develops this idea that they want to spend some time kind of soul-searching and working through their sister relationship and making sure that, like, everything is good between them. So basically, Elizabeth develops this idea for the two of them to go to a therapist and kind of work through anything that might be underlying in their relationship that would interrupt the stem cells from really harvesting and making a peaceful advance into her bloodstream. Um, and I just thought it was so interesting because she talks about how, like, the mind-body studies prove the connection between what we think and how we heal. So Elizabeth says, “We've made up a lot of things in our heads about each other. Maybe if we talk about those things, we'll find some stuff to let go of, to forgive, to clean up and clear out before the harvest and the transplant. What if we come out of hiding and go for the deep stuff?” And then her sister Maggie says, “I love that idea. I'm in.” So then they kind of develop like this list of questions to take to the therapist and really are just trying to get to their most authentic selves in order for the transplant to be as successful as possible. And I just thought that was so interesting, because I don't think I would have ever thought to do that. I mean, obviously my transplant was different because it was my own cells, but I just think taking the time to examine their relationship and wanting to make a peaceful transfer of the cells, like, it was just so intriguing to me. Did you have a reaction to this part of the book, Kayla?
Kayla 15:27
Yeah. So on the first read, I think that's one of the things that made me upset because I was like, eyeroll, you're working on your relationship so that your cells will engraft? Like, give me a break. I was also fresh out of nursing school. So very like, clinically minded. I do believe there's a mind-body connection that we don't fully understand. I've since gotten more into like, yoga and yeah, I guess that's like the gateway drug to woo woo spirituality. But, um, this time around, whether or not it affects the cells, I guess I can embrace the idea that it can't hurt. Right? And it's maybe something you would want to do with someone who has a terminal illness regardless of if you're donating your cells to them or not. The questions they asked were just a great group of questions to ask with anyone that you have an intimate, like, family relationship with that's gone through some stuff. So I'll just quick read them. This is from page 76: ‘Here are things I've done that may have hurt you. Will you forgive me? Here are ways I have felt hurt by you. Can I safely tell you my truth? Can I be myself with you? Will you accept me? Will you love me? Will you make a place for me all the way down to your marrow?” And so those questions really moved me this time around. Now that I was able to sort of drop the cynicism and just accept it for, you know, a healing path forward. Whether you think healing in mind or body or some mysterious combination. I'm not here to say skip the chemo and go to therapy. And that's not what she's saying in the book, either. Her sister, you know, adhered to traditional medicine concepts and then added some side complementary stuff. And I think a lot of people do that. I really admired their audacity and vulnerability in doing that together. That's probably what allowed her death to be peaceful in a way between the two of them. Because there's this quote that made me cry towards the end. Uh, on page 298, and she says: “We look into each other's eyes. There's no need for words. I have said everything there is to say to her. I love you. I respect you. Thank you. I will take care of your kids. She has said everything there is to say to me. We are each other's perfect match, now and forever.” And so that's like literally on her sister's deathbed and that part where she said, “We've said everything there is to say to each other,” it's like, I don't think a lot of people can say that. Even you and I have spent a lot of words on this podcast and it's like, I don't know that I've said everything there is to say to you, uh, with that sort of intentionality. I really admired that practice. One thing that resonated deeply with me this time around, but made me angry the first time, - which I'm sensing a theme here - is a quote from page 17. She's talking about her soul telling her some truth. Elizabeth, the author, is saying her soul whispered this truth to her. “‘Have faith,’ my soul said. ‘You'll see. Your sister will grow from this. She'll rise to meet it. You'll grieve and you'll learn. You'll rage and you'll worry. But through it all, you will grow deeper and deeper into the truth of who you really are.’” Now, six years out, that's so true for me. And I loved that she's talking about herself. The sister. She's not even focused, necessarily - I mean, it says “your sister will grow from this,” but then she talks about how you'll learn and rage and grow, and you'll get deeper into the truth of who you really are. And that's been my experience. Like I am in a different career. I feel like I'm a pretty different person. Like my experience of day-to-day life is pretty different inside my own head. Yeah, cancer shaped me deeply and so that quote really resonated with me. And I just think we were still so fresh that first time that I was not ready to be like, we're going to grow from this. So if that's hitting you wrong today, I totally see that. But it really stuck out to me this time around. What do you think of that quote?
Ella 19:55
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I think I can see now, and I think we've had this conversation even on the podcast before, right. Like, of course we're not glad that cancer happened in our story. In my story, our family's story. But I think we've all become completely different people in a really positive way, in ways that I don't think we would have grown if we didn't face this. But yeah, of course, in the moment. Right. It's like… you didn't want me to have to rise to meet it, right? You didn't want to have to grieve and learn and rage and go through all of, you know, the things that you experience as a loved one, too. And so again, I think it's just - it goes back to depending on what season you're in. I think things are easier to swallow at different times.
Kayla 20:55
And, you know, we picked this book for the isolation season of our podcast because it is about transplant and isolation, but it may be better read longer into the survivorship journey. Each person will have to decide that for themselves. I do want to really emphasize that it truly is a sister book. It's the only one I found that is written by a sister about her sister's cancer. I just love how that shines through and like the honesty in that like we said before. There's this quote where she says on page 85, “Never did I feel more connected to other humans than with my sisters. And yet at the same time, never did I feel as insecure or judged or hurt or pissed off.” And I think anybody with a sister could probably relate to that, especially if you review your whole life as a sister. There's different points where your relationship waxes and wanes and you feel more or less secure, more or less loved, right? And then I really resonated with this quote on page 144. She said, “The amount of love and protection I am feeling for my sister is overwhelming.” And that made me feel seen. Just because Mom and Dad obviously were going through this as your parents and like, now you have a husband. And I think we've mentioned this before, but it feels like those relationships - parent, child, spouse - get centralized or are often talked about. And yet your siblings can be some of your most primal, intimate, lifelong relationships. And I didn't feel like anyone was understanding the depth of fear, love, and protection I was feeling towards you during this time and like the toll it was taking. So the fact that she named that and said it was overwhelming. The fact that this whole book is written by a sister who had to watch her sister suffer from this really made me feel seen. So that was… if you're a sibling listening to this, I do really recommend this book to just… help you feel seen by that sibling perspective.
Ella 23:11
Another thing that I really appreciated about the book is that despite Elizabeth or Liz being the main narrator of the story, she also weaves in excerpts from her sister Maggie's - they call them field notes, or her journal. And I think that's really powerful, too, because similar to this podcast, right, it's like there's - there's different sides to every story and there's the side of the person experiencing the cancer. And then there's the side of the sibling or the loved one, the supporter. And I just think that was really powerful for her to also include Maggie's perspective, too, because sometimes what Elizabeth was experiencing was made richer or deeper by also adding Maggie's words, too. And I just think that was a really beautiful way for her to honor her sister and to make sure that her presence was very much seen and felt in the book as well.
Kayla 24:15
And I loved her slightly different perspective. Sometimes she was funny too, Maggie, the sister who had cancer. She talks about how people sometimes seem to always say the wrong thing, and she's saying that a little bit tongue in cheek, like she's aware that she - she's not letting anyone win. So there's a quote on page 179 where she says, “As always, no one can say the right thing. If they agree with me when I talk about a poor prognosis, then I'm sure I am going to die. If they tell me I will come through this, I am sure there are clueless idiots. No one can win. I have an intolerance for anyone without a death sentence.” And that made me laugh because it's accurate. Like I just remember feeling almost holier than thou when it was really rough for you. Like. Yeah. If somebody wanted to be positive, it's like, don't you know how hard it is? And if someone was like, so scared it was like, can't you like, be a little encouraging? It's like you get in this headspace where like, nothing anyone says is the right thing. And so I liked Maggie's honesty and how her thoughts were sprinkled in the book. And one thing that super stuck out to me is going back to when they were in therapy. I think they went back a second time when Maggie relapsed or something. I feel like they had a second session in the book, I can't quite remember. But he says, the therapist says to Liz, the sister, “So you think being smart and being in control are the same thing? That hypervigilance is the same as intelligence?” And I was like, oof! I mean, that is definitely me. Or was definitely me when you were sick. I mean, I had to go to my own therapy to stop being hypervigilant in my daily life because some part of my brain was telling me that if I did everything perfectly and was hypervigilant and could control every aspect of life, like, your cancer wouldn't come back. And like when I say it out loud, I didn't believe that consciously, but that's how my brain and my heart were acting. And Liz has a little bit of that too. And so the therapist's calling it out so succinctly was a really good mirror for me, uh, to be like, yeah, that was true for me. Like, hypervigilance being equated with intelligence or control. It's definitely not… not a helpful thing for any - either the one who's sick or the supporters.
Ella 26:46
I think one thing that we've talked about is how in my cancer experience, I really struggled when I felt like people were pitying me. You know, even the way that people might look at you, you just feel like, oh, like it's not a wonderful feeling to be the object of someone's pity, even when people have the best of intentions. Um, and so she says on page 182, “Don't be the strong one helping the weak one. Don't be the fortunate one helping the victim. Give from your strength to her strength. Strength to strength.” And she continues to use that line, “strength to strength,” throughout the book. And that really did strike me as a helpful reframe for how to even interact with someone who has cancer, or someone who is navigating something that's really challenging or debilitating. Instead of viewing it as: you are a stronger person and you're helping this weaker person or that person with cancer is the victim, right? And you're the fortunate one. It's like, you're using the strengths that you have to give that person strength and in many ways carrying them through when they maybe can't do it themselves. I just thought that was a really beautiful way to kind of reframe that idea of pity or savior complex or even just, yeah, the strong person helping the weak person.
Kayla 28:18
Yeah. The acknowledgement that the person with cancer… still has strengths, you see, because they're physically weak doesn't mean that all of their strengths or their varied aspects of their personality are gone. I remember thinking that when you were sick, like people reduced you, or I even had the tendency to reduce you to “Ella with cancer.” But it's like you have a million different personality quirks just like the rest of us. And so I like the “strength to strength” mentality, because it doesn't reduce you to being the weak victim or to being just one thing. It's like, no. You still have a lot to offer. And we're just two humans doing our best, right? I guess I wanted to end with a quote from page 300, which is almost the end of the book. This is after Maggie dies and Liz is on the phone with a dear friend, and the friend says this to her: “Please let yourself grieve. Let yourself fall into a hole the size of your sister.” And that quote definitely made me cry when I read it in the book. “A hole the size of your sister.” That's just such beautiful, terrible language for how it feels. And I never want to presume that I know what that feels like, because I know some of you listening have lost sisters or other people to cancer and Ella’s still here with me. But I also know that I… confronted the idea of a hole the size of my sister more than I ever had before her cancer. You know, when you're young, especially, you know, death is real. But, like, you don't truly face it or contemplate it. And so having to reckon with the idea of being left behind and being an only child and wondering if my parents and sister will all die before me and leave me, you know, alone in the world when it comes to my nuclear family. Like those are things I've wrestled with. And so the acknowledgement of, I guess the weight of the grief was - was big for me because, again, I think that the sibling relationships in popular culture and in writing and in movies are just not given as much weight as they really have in life. We just don't have as many models or people talking about this, which is why we started this whole podcast. Sibling relationships matter, and a hole the size of your sister is pretty big. So… all in all, we recommend this book a lot. It's a great sister narrative, like we've said. Be gentle with yourself if you're ready to read about someone's death from cancer or not. And if you're ready to confront and tackle some deep, spiritual, self-help oriented questions, she's not prescriptive. Liz, the writer, I don't think she tries to get you to see things her way. She's just working through stuff and sharing it with you so you can kind of take what works for you and leave the rest. I never felt like she was preachy or pushy, but when I read this six years ago, I was not even in a place to think, uh, beyond the next day or beyond the physical realm. So with that warning, we do highly recommend this book, and I hope that even just hearing some of the ideas from it were helpful to you today. We'll be back next week. And fair warning, we'll be talking about spiritual stuff. We've done one faith-focused episode before. We're both Christians, and obviously our faith was challenged, uh, through cancer. And so now that we're in this isolation season, we're going to kind of talk about… you know that book, “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Sort of that question, “Are you there, God?” As the suffering lingers and, you know, a relapse comes or your side effects won't go away. Where is God when it's not getting better? And how do you reconcile that if you have a faith that you previously leaned on? So that's where we're going next week. And until then, we hope you have the best week available to you.