Standing at Water’s Edge

When Janice Post-White’s son is diagnosed with leukemia at four years old, a journey begins for her family through the difficult years of treatment and the ensuing ones of post-treatment. As a cancer nurse, researcher, and educator, Post-White is uniquely prepared to wade through the clinical side of her son’s ordeal. She tackles the consultations and treatment plans with analytical precision. But as a mother, she is wholly unprepared for the fear, stress, and suffering that cancer creates in its wake as it attacks her son’s small body. She explores the turmoil that illness brings to her family’s life with her detailed account of hospital stays, her son’s emotional outbursts, and the different ways each family member copes. Post-White is a steady voice of resolve through this transformative memoir so full of wisdom gained in the fire of experience.

Grappling with a life interrupted is a powerful theme that is brilliantly and beautifully captured through the life of a family in the fight of their life. Well-crafted and deeply reflective, Post-White’s book offers insights about living with uncertainty, focusing on love and joy instead of fear, and defining the nature of care and connection with a loved one. Her scientific mind responds to the crisis first, but her heart follows closely behind as she seeks an “equilibrium between thinking and feeling” through diagnosis, treatment, and beyond. The result is a well-balanced account of the exterior forces at work and the author’s interior life. She writes with honesty and the searing knowledge that comes from feeling death’s shadow hovering too close to her four-year-old son. This life-affirming account will move readers to accept the darkness that comes with life, make room for joy, and design a new normal when life takes unexpected turns.

Honorable Mention in the 2022 Eric Hoffer Book Award Health Category and a First Horizon Award Finalist.

SYNOPSIS
“Standing at Water’s Edge” is a story about a cancer nurse who becomes a cancer mom when her four-year-old son is diagnosed with leukemia. He survives, and yet she dreams of his death, which forces her to face her fears or be haunted by them forever.

While her son Brennan draws pictures to process his emotions, Post-White buries her feelings and juggles her roles as nurse/mother/daughter along with cancer teacher and researcher. On a trip to Paris, she lights a candle in Notre Dame, praying for her son to get well, while back home in Minnesota, Brennan draws a candle for the headless horseman “to help him find his way.” Together they navigate through changes in identity and roles and find strength and courage to face their fears and learn what facing death teaches them about living life.

Readers will reflect on their own experiences to gain perspective and clarity as well as inspiration to face their own fears, let go of expectations, and be present in the moment.

This was a heartfelt and insightful memoir about love, family, and the tides of cancer.

The author’s expertise as a cancer nurse ultimately fails her when her own son is diagnosed with leukaemia. Her upbringing was shaped by her mother’s emotionally stunted responses and her father’s stoicism — typical of that era — which influenced her own psyche, and she bottled up her feelings:

Though her family all loved and supported each other, as Brennan’s mother she bore the bulk of the burden of responsibility on her own shoulders, always having to put on a brave face for everyone else, even her husband who withdrew into his own thoughts rather than sharing his fears with her:

We inhabited our own emotional orbits and just kept marching along. It was a time of getting through. The road map directed our actions but advised very little. I knew how to lead the army into battle, but I had no idea what to do with the effects, my responses and feelings.

As Brennan’s treatment progressed, she saw the light in him fade. Still, his drawings and conversations with her showed maturity beyond his years as he found his own ways to process what was happening with him:

I’d never imagined that I would lament the absence of his fiercely independent and tempestuous attitude. As I watched him, I pleaded with myself to find something, anything, in this boy that I recognized and loved. […] Chemotherapy was saving my son, but I felt I was losing him.

As she struggled to ensure Brennan’s protocols were followed despite his resistance, her own health suffered both physically as well as mentally, but there was little respite. Her workload seldom abated, and her health worsened. Nevertheless, she took on the mantle of leading a “cancer family” and tried to make their lives as normal as possible, with family vacations, sports, and activities scattered around hospital visits.

Fortunately, Brennan survived — but the shadow of doubt is always there. She was always acutely aware of his other “cancer peers” who relapsed and eventually died, and there were even instances of unexpected non-cancer-related deaths that rattled her even more. To this day, she still dreams of Brennan’s death.

This was a powerful and difficult read, as the author’s frankness and insightful honesty is gripping from beginning to end. The language and style of writing are engaging and thoughtfully executed, and it also includes a significant amount of research. I can see how this memoir was not only part of her own healing process, but also a roadmap for other parents or children that may be in the same situation.

Janice Post-White writes from a unique perspective. Not only is she a first-time cancer mom, but also a cancer nurse. Janice discovers that we still can (and should) find joy in each moment despite life’s challenges. Brennan’s sketches provide insight into the psyche of this young boy as he deals daily with the painful and unpleasant effects of chemotherapy. Reading this book made me feel sad that children get cancer and have to go through the pain and discomfort of chemotherapy. But I also admire the courage of young Brennan to face it every day and his mother who is trying to give him a normal life in any way possible. However, their story also gives us hope because it shows that cancer isn’t a death sentence for all children diagnosed with this disease. I recommend Standing at Water’s Edge for everyone who needs to learn more about cancer or knows anybody who has cancer. It shows ways to cope and provides clinical cancer information.