I have fought cancer twice. That sentence surprises me in how ordinary it feels now. If someone had told me in early 2020 that I was about to embark on a battle with lymphoma during an historic global pandemic to then only enjoy an eighteen-month remission before relapse and a second battle, I would have dreaded my future. I would have been inconsolable in my fear and unable to enjoy my time before the “event” was to begin.
I will never, ever thank cancer for being in my life. Just as I will never refer to cancer as a blessing. To do so would be an immeasurable insult to all who have been touched by it - exponentially so to those who have lost someone to it.
I will, as I have heard others do, call cancer an opportunity.
It is an opportunity like other challenges in our lives. We do not choose it; it is put upon us. We do not welcome it; we wish with deep and passionate trembling that it had never graced our door. Because we cancer patients know what the movies and the “marathon-running-during-cancer” articles do not tell you. Cancer tears and claws at more than your body. It tears and claws at your spirit, your mental health, your marriage, your family, your friendships, your self image, your everything. Cancer has never been and will never be anyone’s friend. But like an impassable river that you have no choice but to cross, it can be an opportunity to learn - to challenge the boundaries of who you thought you were. We can forge ourselves in its fire. The flames will burn you; no one emerges unscathed. But you can learn from how you regard the places where you’re burnt. You can discover, for better or worse, who you are by how you travel through cancer’s treacherous waters. No, not discover. Create. You can create who you are by deciding what intangible things in your life cancer is permitted to hurt. You can’t protect everything from it, not for yourself and not for the people who love you. But you can decide if you will permit it to break your spirit, your mental health, your marriage, your family, your friendships, your self image, your everything.
More than once, many times more than once, I felt like one or more of those things were breaking during my cancer battles. And for some people for some things, maybe they are meant to break. Maybe that friendship isn’t quite what you thought it was, and cancer showed you it’s time to let the season of that friendship end. Maybe a family member, whose subtle yet deep abuse from years past has resurfaced for you in the emotional storm of your journey and made you see the painful truth of your relationship, maybe that family member doesn’t need to be an active presence in your life any more.
But the things you do not wish to break, will you let them?
I cannot tell you the cathartic force of feeling like cancer was breaking my spirit, or maybe more truthfully feeling like cancer had broken my spirit, and making the conscious and concerted choice to shout out into the void of illness: “Fuck you, cancer! Fuck. You. Fuck your fever, fuck your aches, fuck your threat to my tomorrow, and fuck your war against my sanity! I’m still here, and I’m still me! I can’t decide what you do to my body, but I can decide what you do to my spirit. I decide my attitude. I decide my personality. And you don’t get to make me a zombie. You don’t get to make me a miserable old jackass who lashes out at his husband or shouts at nurses. I’m still me. And you can fuck off with your misery! I will let myself be sad when I am sad. And I will let myself be angry when I am angry. But I will not let you swallow up what happiness does exist in the midst of my journey. I get to smile, you sick fuck! I get to laugh the biggest laughs my hospital room and chemo clinic have ever heard, and there is nothing your nasty little pernicious villainy can do about it. Even if the day comes when you win, I refuse to lose.”
Before cancer, I didn’t know I was that person. Maybe before cancer, I wasn’t that person. In fact, as I suggested in the beginning, me before cancer would have cowered before the dark and mighty shadow of the word cancer itself. But my cancer battles were an opportunity to create that person who would tell cancer to go fuck itself. To create a person who accepts the past and what it did to him - both good and bad. A person who understands he cannot predict or control the future, but he can do his part in his little corner of the world to influence what the future will look like.
Cancer did break my spirit. For a while. But I did not let it stay broken. I did not let cancer win.
What, if anything, are you facing in your life now? Cancer? Depression? Financial stress or challenging relationships? What will you permit it to break? What should you permit to break so that you can turn the page from the hurt it brings you? Will you let this challenge you’re facing win, or will you tell it to go fuck itself? Whatever journey you’re on, it’s an opportunity. Take it.
I do not believe things happen for a reason in the way some folks do. I do not think the need for meaning causes events. I think events cause a need for meaning. What we are handed that is out of our control is not destiny or preordained. Even if you want God to be a part of the equation, I think it is a far more beautiful interpretation of Him that He lets be whatever will be and lets us create whatever personal growth or meaning out of it that we can. Our actions and our attitude create our own destiny. To cast God as puppet master deprives you of the beauty of possibility your creator instilled in you. Are you sure Jesus wants to take the wheel, or does He want to see how you handle the controls? No, I do not believe things happen for a reason. Instead I believe we can create meaning out of what happens to us by learning from it and growing with it. We decide the reason for why things happen by how we respond to them. It is our response and our growth that has meaning, not the event itself. That, to me, is far more spiritually powerful than letting go and letting God. Lean on your faith if it helps you, but understand your faith is the oars in the boat upon the water. It’s still up to you to row.
Before, and especially during cancer, I feared the future and was weighed down by the past. Cancer was my first opportunity in my life to slow down. More than that, to stop. It was only in standing still that I could see my life more honestly, without the mirage and haziness of ‘going through the motions’ of everyday life. Bills must be paid and relationships must be maintained, but I hope if you haven’t already you someday make the intentional choice to stand still for a while and look around you. You may, like I did, notice several things about your life and maybe even life itself. Some things I noticed were quite ugly: people in my life who caused me more harm than good, and the neglect of an old dream to put words on paper and offer them out to the world in case they may provide comfort or meaning or guidance to someone who needed to read them. Some things were wonderful: the dual simplicity and complexity of Nature, the inexplicable harmony of my husband’s sense of responsibility and his child-like freedom dancing in tandem with one another to make him exactly who I need and who I love, and the realization that a dream neglected does not have to be a dream abandoned.
In standing still, for the first time I could view yesterday and tomorrow from the safe distance of now. There is nothing more promising than any given present moment. It’s where gratitude lives and where opportunity thrives. It’s where I want to spend all my time from now on. I will still learn from my past and still work toward my future. But those are not the places I want to be. I want to be here and now, and I invite you to join me. I will reignite and re-imagine my old neglected dream of offering my words to any who might gain value from them. Because while great obstacles like cancer can make you feel alone, they also can make you see how together we all really are. While each of our rowboats may be a bit different, we’re all navigating the uncertain waters of being human.
Whatever challenge (opportunity) you are facing now, I wish you strength for your journey. If you don’t think you have the strength, then create it. And don’t surrender your spirit. Not to anyone or anything. Hold it close to you and protect it. Tell it what it needs to hear. Shout if you have to. Three months after my bone marrow transplant I was given this writing prompt: What would you like to say to your spirit? This is what I wrote:
To my spirit, who dwells on cliffs, expecting to be shoved from your home and down into the valley of tomorrow, filled with jagged, spine-cracking rocks. To my spirit, forever restless in happiness, who does not trust the calm, majestic waters of a peaceful lake because you were born through fire, forged for survival, and untrained for tranquility. Sit a moment. Breathe a moment. Take into your lungs the happiness that lives in your home. Take into your heart the good memories, and dismiss with confident nonchalance the bad ones. Tomorrow does not have to be a valley full of danger or a nightmare of ghouls and heartbreak, pain and sorrow. Tomorrow can be a mountain, upon which the air is crisp and clear and the sun shines warmly on a thousand tomorrows, each one free of what has hurt you and filled instead with the tiny wonderful things that bring you joy. In each tomorrow, in each moment, in today, live with comfort in the now. Dwell in the promising present. Make your home in the gratitude and happiness that the good, best parts of you have built.