A close neighbor died very recently. That is a simple, but profoundly sad, statement of fact. Those few words are difficult to write when they concern someone you knew, cared about and greatly respected.
Elizabeth and Patrick Kern penned something infinitely more difficult: A memoir and chronicle of the ten years they spent living with her ultimately fatal disease. Their book, Uncharted Territory: Our Decade Living With Breast Cancer, was published this last winter by Secret Garden Publishing.
Though death is intrinsic to living, usually we spend nearly all of our time in suspended disbelief of that truth. It’s not that any of us deny the reality of death. It’s just that, given the choice, most of us choose not to face it daily. Patrick and Elizabeth Kern increasingly lost that option over the past several years. At times that makes their book difficult to read, but it also makes it deeply inspirational.
The writing is relentlessly personal, and carries us through time to a point about six months before Elizabeth died, (Patrick is planning a second edition that will cover that gap as well). Don’t expect a spiritual reflection on death from Uncharted Territory. That is not what this book is about. On every page the focus is sharply on living; living with joy, living with fear, living with anger, but above all, living with love in the face of all else.
Patrick began writing Uncharted Territory as a form of self therapy. The feelings he was grappling with demanded a form of expression. At the same time, Elizabeth was writing her own personal journal. As Patrick’s writing took shape, it revealed a purpose beyond his need for a release. And with that understanding, he asked that she add her own voice to the work.
Elizabeth agreed to share selected raw entries from her journal to his work in progress. She writes beautifully about her life in a simple, straightforward way. Reading her now, one feels intimately the often sudden surges of hope and or despair which accompanied different moments and stages of her cancer treatments. Then you experience her unflagging resilience regardless.
Uncharted Territory is a love story about a beautiful woman and a man who never stopped cherishing her. Though the stress in their life grew exponentially, as Elizabeth’s illness progressed, neither ever lost sight of what truly mattered to them.
Elizabeth never “accepted” her pending death. She resisted it in every way she and her doctors knew how. But Elizabeth refused to be consumed by her struggle against cancer. She refused to be robbed of her joy of living. Once she reluctantly conceded that a full cure was likely beyond her reach, Elizabeth fought instead for added time -- time during which Elizabeth never stopped embracing the things that she cherished about her life. Though death claims each of us in the end, Elizabeth did not lose her fight with cancer. She lived to raise their son and see him grow up into a fine young man.
Grace is a word with hidden depth. It means far more than poise or kindness. Grace is the perennial eye of the hurricane, and Elizabeth tended to live with grace. Like with most of us, though, Patrick had more trouble staying centered there. Patrick is a somewhat private man with strong, potentially stormy feelings, as he himself admits. The struggles he and Elizabeth faced sometimes knocked him off his stride, and his narrative clearly captures that repetitive whiplash. But love is a powerful beacon that Patrick never lost sight of, and whatever turbulence came up inside him, he worked through it to be there for his wife.
Therein lies an extremely important message that this book delivers forcefully. Patrick writes: “…research shows that women who suffer a serious illness are seven times more likely to become separated or divorced than men with similar health issues (from a 2009 report in the journal Cancer).”
I don’t believe that is because men are seven times less caring about their mates' misfortunes than are women under similar circumstances. Most men grow up believing it’s their job to “fix things” if and when they break. We are taught to respond to adversity with deeds. When we can’t, too often it puts us at a loss. We just don’t know how to make it better.
Patrick’s journey of discovery throughout this book is in many ways as profound as the path Elizabeth walked with grace herself. He is painfully honest about the difficulties he went through, and how that affected him on a daily basis. He chose not to shy away from any unflattering personal insights that emerged. Ultimately, through openness, Patrick reaffirmed that being there for his wife meant exactly that, nothing more and nothing less. Answers were not a prerequisite, nor was being perfect.
Uncharted Journey is a gift Elizabeth Holland Kern and Patrick Kern consciously chose to leave us all with. Both of them hope(d) fervently that it can touch in a positive way the lives of other couples facing extremely difficult times. There’s no doubt in my mind that it will. Patrick also takes some solace in knowing that a lasting legacy to Elizabeth now exists in the intimate portrait that it captures of a remarkable woman. He should, because it does.
For those who knew Elizabeth personally, a celebration of her life is being planned to take place sometime this summer. All profits generated by the sale of Uncharted Journey: Our Decade Living With Breast Cancer will go to the Benedictine Hospital Oncology Support Program in Kingston.
Patrick says that only a few copies of the current printing remain unsold. These can be purchased in Phoenicia at both 60 Main Street and at Mama’s Boy Café. They are also for sale in Woodstock at The Golden Notebook and at Mirabai, at Inquiring Mind in Saugerties, and at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck. Uncharted Journey can also be ordered by emailing Patrick directly at unchartedep@gmail.com. Anyone in a position to help further distribute the pending expanded second edition can contact Patrick at that email as well.
Tom Rinaldo writes the Dispatches from Shandaken column for the Watershed Post's Shandaken page. Email Tom at tomrinaldo@watershedpost.com.
