I wondered this week whether Christmas decorations have a place in hospitals. Is nothing allowed to just be miserable? Why are you trying to cheer me up? I am here to give my ten millionth blood draw and a stool sample for the assumed gastroenteritis that may delay my next cycle of chemotherapy. What your ten-year-old baubles and deflating Santa Claus do to me is the equivalent of a man telling a woman “Cheer up love, give us a smile.” Fuck off.

The breast clinic is a putrid shade of pink tinsel. White t-shirted carollers are in my way and three of them probably have Influenza A as they spit into the air about their Jingle Bell Rock. Can’t we accept this place is hell? Yes, there are beautiful little downy skinned babies being pushed and pulled earthside on the second floor. That’s fucking amazing, but trust me, those people are already on cloud nine. They don’t need a glittery reindeer statuette to make them feel good.

My family is balancing precariously on the edge of every emotion minute to minute.

Tim is on his business class flight to Singapore for work, sending me his choices on the menu. Stracciatella, saltbush, ginger and shallot, all the words I miss and cannot taste anyway. I imagine his legroom, his noise cancelling headphones, the immaculately put together flight attendants calling him Sir. I don’t have to imagine the champagne; he sends me a picture. We struggle to strike a balance between the sharing we’d normally do while avoiding making me bang my head on the desk in jealousy.

I miss my babies. Recent bouts consumed by pain or long hours at chemo infusions means days when I don’t see B at all. I creep into her bedroom with muffled crying, trying to gently smell her hair and extract from it secrets about her day. Did you have fun, little girl? How was your sandpit? Your lunch? How did you get that tiny scratch? Did you do balancing and did you feed Rosa? Did you see Grandma and did you drink enough water? Did you have the best day ever? I hope so. Please wake up and see that I’m home. I’ll hold you until you fall asleep again.

Z is stoic and unruffled until disappointment about missing out on a leadership role at school unravels her into a pool of grief comprised of a cocktail of an entire year’s humiliation, fear and fatigue. She’s so tired from her bravado, so exhausted by the charade of being alright. We argue tearfully over me wearing a wig to school and the one time I forgot. That kids in 2025 still would made snide remarks about such a thing floors me, and I forget that that’s not the point. The point is it hurts her, so I should just bloody wear a wig.

We should be in Europe, wandering the twinkling markets with mulled wine and preparing to meet up with Tim’s family who are gathering at his parents’ home. They’ve asked us to forward the girls’ heights so they can be recorded on the wall with their cousins. A digital note sent by text instead of giggling and lining up with a straight back and ankles together for Nanny to mark by hand. The feeling we’ve ruined Christmas is absurd of course, but it niggles.

At my penultimate chemo my nurse asks me if I believe in prayer. "Maybe," I say, "but probably not in the sense that you mean." She presses a talisman of Mary into my hand. "I will pray for you." I look at Mary and think about Bondi, about Gaza. What does it matter how we wish each other well? With a God or without, with a star or a baby or a smoke signal. They're all the same embrace. The silent prayer is soothing at first and then a solemn reminder of my mortality. Some might say I've become over-confident of not dying, and here's Mary sombrely shaking her head saying; "You still might, soz."

So take your tacky decorations and shove them up your bum. In fact, maybe that’s the problem. If we’re going to decorate, let’s deck the halls. Make it look like Harrods in there. It’s the half-assedness of it all that really shits me to death. If the real housewives of the western suburbs can upgrade their Christmas décor every year, the hospital can too.

Meanwhile, I’ll be down on my luck on Christmas day, surrounded by my beautiful family and very best friends, floating in the pool and knocking back oysters and spicy margaritas. I know I have it good, but I’m allowing myself to also be sad. This sucks, it just does. Despite my negativity, I know it won't suck forever, and I promise that when I next have a year when I’m on top – when my whole household is healthy, earning money, spending time together, traveling the world and kicking goals, I will remember to drop to my knees and meet people wherever they are, even if it’s misery.  

 Taya. x

Taya Reid is a writer and photographer working and living in Walyup on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja

Email Taya: taya@tayareid.com

Instagram: @tayareidstories

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