This week I cried a few times. The first time was strangely unexpected. I was talking to the person I love when something in me snapped and I realised I was thousands of miles away. I wanted them to jump through the screen of my phone and hold me.
I had a desperate desire to be physically loved, to be held to feel safe, to be loved. Held down on this earth and be forever wanted.
Thick burning tears rolled out of my eyes, and I realised I was scared.
I was thousands of miles away from home, alone and in unbearable pain.
I sat on the floor trying to unpack my case, I felt like a rag doll, flopping one way or another. Then I realised I’d shit myself.
I can’t begin to describe the kind of pain I was in, it started a few weeks back, seem to get worse every time I flew and now I was sitting at the breakfast table with my friends who had just flown halfway round the world to meet me, I was trying to put on a brave face.
I lay on the sun lounger, this was my first holiday in so long.
This was my chance to relax and feel better, but the pain was excruciating. It felt like my ghost appendix were going to explode. I went to my room, curled up in a very small ball on my giant bed and sort of passed out.
I was asleep but it didn’t feel like sleep because I could still feel the pain. I was dreaming about my dad. He had come to pick me up in the cutest little, tiny white bubble car. He said: “Come on Queeny, I’ll give you a lift.”
Next, it was my mum on the wall of a giant lido: the water was black, the sky was black, I was calling out to her shouting her name. “Mum, mum,” I called out into the darkness, “I’ve got you some cigarettes.” She shouted back: “Tracey go away”
Next it was my friend Willie.
In life he was very debonair, in my dream, he stood on an ancient dry stone Roman wall.
I kept trying to climb up, but kept missing my footing. I had one life-before-death dream after another, until the doctor was called and I was sent to hospital.
When you are very ill or near death, you can see lots of dead people, they sort of take it turns to visit
When you are very ill or near death, you can see lots of dead people, they sort of take it turns to visit and at a certain point, try to entice you away. Away to the other side.
Just before I was diagnosed with cancer, I fell madly in love, it was incredible, the love took all the pain away and gave me a sense that life on earth in this world was worth fighting for. I did not feel alone, I could feel an embrace a heart beating. Arms holding me tight.
A breath so close to my skin.
In all my dying I felt alive, more alive than ever because I felt so loved.
I’m still convinced it’s that love that’s kept me alive.
Back in July 2020 when I had squamous cell cancer. Just before I had my giant surgery, to remove my bladder and anything that touched it, including part of my vagina.
The person I really love asked if I was afraid, I said: “No, God no!”, I’ve written a list of everyone I want to see, my mum, dad, Docket, my friends Willie Lamarque, David Tang, my uncle Colin…”
My lover snapped at me in a really tough, firm voice: “Jeeesus… you rip that list up now, no way are you going into that surgery to hang out with dead people, you’re coming back to me.”
Surviving a deadly cancer and massive full-blown surgery doesn’t mean there are not a million side-effects.
I’m so happy to feel loved.
Happy birthday to the person who makes me feel so alive.
Tracey Emin is an artist
