ORDINARILY EXTRAORDINARY

In this memoir, a recent widower offers a loving, emotionally packed tribute to his wife.

Long begins his story near the end, about three and a half years after his wife, Melanie, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, which spread to her bones and later her liver. She had just returned home from the hospital and was experiencing a stroke that was leaving her temporarily unable to speak clearly. While recounting her medical history for the EMS responders, he gives readers a quick catch-up on the arduous battle she had been enduring: “She did chemo and radiation early on when she was first diagnosed. Later she did chemo pills for a while, and now she’s back on full chemo injections.…She’s had two back surgeries, spinal fusion surgeries. She had a double mastectomy, reconstructive surgery….She was diagnosed and treated for Wegener’s the year before her cancer diagnosis. It presented in her lungs.” The memoir is primarily the story of the chaotic final weeks that followed Melanie’s stroke—the continuing blood clots, the hopes, the fears, and the trips back and forth to the hospital. Long’s recollection of these days, in moment-by-moment detail, is remarkable. But more than a summary of events and conversations, this is a wrenchingly honest portrait, liberally sprinkled with self-effacing humor, of the author’s own formidable journey, from his childhood and young adulthood to the present. After Melanie’s death, he found himself the single father of four children ranging in age from 6 to 12. And, most poignantly, this memoir is about love. Throughout his chronicle, Long’s articulate, conversational prose brings readers directly into his head and heart. “Maybe the biggest defining characteristics Melanie possessed,” he writes, “were her ability to make friends and to see the good in people.” She had an extraordinary, empathetic gift for listening, leading even strangers to talk about their lives with an intensity usually reserved for family members and close friends. Long recalls hearing Melanie laughing during an extended phone conversation only to learn that she was chatting with a bill collector.

A compelling, albeit painful, cancer account that will likely resonate with fellow travelers.