Surprised by Love

So that morning I was seeing my clients which was a god-send because bearing witness to the complexities and griefs of their lives thoroughly distracted me from my self-absorption with my chemo and cancer. I felt buoyed up by the privilege of taking care of others. But the second I had a moment to my self, I was back to being a depressed, depleted, despairing, discouraged, dysfunctional version of myself. I was on the pity pot with my seat belt fastened.
I remember standing at my ice box (yes, I'm that old) and peering in at the jumbled array looking in vain for some comfort food when the doorbell rang. It was the mail lady.
She handed me a small package addressed to me from Carleton, College, Northfield, Minnesota, my son, Sam. I was immediately intrigued. To the best of my knowledge, Sam had never sent me a package of anything. And Sam throughout our first summer with my cancer had insisted on being quite casual and seemingly unconcerned about me and my illness. He forthrightly announced early on to me his reasoning.
"So, Dad, the way I see it what's the point of worrying about your cancer? If you get better then worrying was a big waste of time and if you don't get well, then honestly what was the point of worrying about it."
Thus having articulated his "denial strategy", Sam set about keeping his life of friends, frisbee, beer pong, and video games as normal as possible during my summer of chemo. With a very noticeable exception, he was quite considerate in terms of helping out: always volunteering to run errands, clean up the kitchen, do the shopping. As an adolescent male, he naturally didn't want to talk about his feelings or worries about my cancer, but to his credit. Sam really showed up. He is a very good kid and I felt really nurtured by his helpfulness. And despite my being a psychologist who has spent a life time helping people talk about their feelings, I chose to respect Sam's way of compartmentalizing, coping, and caring. Often it's family members judging how each other are responding to a crisis that creates conflict in a family. There's no right way to love.
So it was really unlike Sam to be sending me packages out of the blue from college. I quickly opened it and it was a white enamel mug. With no note. I was totally mystified.
And then I turned it around in my hands and read the bold print on the other side; F*** Cancer.
I was completely taken by surprise. I laughed out loud. I felt like my big tall adolescent son had just given me a big bear hug. Love comes in many different kinds of packages.