By Linda Plunkett
Published in Skirt Magazine
September 2002

"Let's do lunch." "Can we meet for lunch?" "Do you want to grab a sandwich?"
Friends-especially girlfriends-often use the lunch hour to visit. Go into any restaurant at 12:30 pm and survey the tables. Chances are that most are occupied by women. Time for GT-girl things, girl talk, girl time.

My friend Eva and I are no different. When we make plans to chat or work on a project or shop, we usually consider the activity as an excuse for lunch. We both enjoy the comfort that food gives us. We've had lunch in each other's kitchens, in our cars on the run, and in all sorts of restaurants. Our most memorable lunch occurred nine years ago at MUSC Children's Hospital and involved our girls.

Alison (hers) and Amanda (mine) were separated by a year and different interests. Alison was in the ninth grade and bubbly and artistic. Amanda was a brainy and musical eighth grader at the same school. They fluttered in their own network of friends and activities. Though they were friendly, they were not friends until 1993 when their separate worlds collided, intersected and merged in ways none of us could have foreseen.

First Alison and then Amanda was diagnosed with childhood cancer. Their expansive and happy lives as teenagers suddenly contracted into an existence of needles, nausea, nurses and nightmares. Their range of activities narrowed to their homes, the hospital and the cancer clinic. They spent their days with their mothers instead of their friends. Their time was no longer measured by the school calendar but by the protocol schedule.

During this turmoil, Eva became an important part of my existence. She had been a member of the sorority of cancer moms longer than I, and she took me under her wing like a big sister. She tried to comfort me throughout the endless initiation rituals of Amanda's surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and side-effects. She dispensed practical wisdom for coping with the procedures in the clinic and the hospital. Her friendship was invaluable to me during Amanda's illness and after.

I helped Eva too. We became sounding boards for our constant concerns and day-to-day miseries, yet we discovered ways to amuse ourselves in the midst of our extraordinary circumstances. As Alison and Amanda spent time together in treatment, Eva and I bolstered each other with crossword puzzles, catalogue shopping, and GT.

We knew that other moms of children with cancer would appreciate such support as well, so we planned a lunch meeting one day when our girls were both in the hospital. Under the sponsorship of the clinic, we reserved a meeting room, ordered sandwiches and invited moms of other cancer patients who were hospitalized at the time.

Lunch was a great success. About a dozen mothers shared sandwiches and stories. We talked about strains on marriages, healthy siblings, finances, insurance, and jobs. We shared fears of losing our children. We proposed ways to help our sick children find some normal happiness. When Eva and I left lunch that day, we were upbeat to have found some cause, some purpose in the tragedy of our children's disease.

Our enthusiasm quickly soured when we returned to the pediatric oncology unit where we had left our girls to their daily grind of medical exams and medications. We expected that they would have slept while we were away, and so we were alarmed when we found their rooms empty. I also had a twinge of guilt as I realized that I had ignored my precious Amanda while I was enjoying myself at lunch. What if she had needed me or had an emergency? Had she turned to Alison when she couldn't find me? An anxious search ended in the unit's tiny kitchen. We found our girls twisted together and giggling.

Relief stung our eyes. They were safe. Even better, they were just being girls, not cancer patients. Left to their own devices, Alison and Amanda decided to shun the hospital food and "do lunch" themselves. They found a can of tuna and set about making tuna fish sandwiches. Their maneuvers to open the can while attached to IV poles had tangled their tubing. Their hilarity at their predicament increased when they realized that they weren't sure what other ingredients were needed or available. Laughing with them, we came to their rescue, unsnarled their lines, and rustled up the rest of their merry meal.

Amanda and Alison weren't successful at feeding their bodies that day, but they did have the right recipe for nourishing their souls. Without their legion of pals and the familiar backdrop of school, they had forged their own fun amid the chaos. For a brief moment in time, they forgot their cancer and were just regular girls doing the girl thing.

Months later, first Alison and then Amanda lost their battles with cancer. Just as Eva had initiated me in the rituals of pediatric cancer, she led me through the mists of maternal grief. We continue to mourn our precious daughters, but we try to dwell on bright moments like that day in the hospital. We like to think that the two angel pals even now find time for fun-filled lunches. Eva and I still enjoy our lunches together, too. Tuna fish sandwiches are our favorite fare.

Linda Plunkett is a part-time professor at the College of Charleston. She and her friend, Eva Fitzgerald, have founded Moms on Mourning, an organization devoted to mothers who have lost their children. They will conduct a workshop about coping with the holidays for the