Negativity versus Realism OR A Rose by Any Other Name

I was able to visit my sister last weekend who is remodeling her kitchen. It is entirely gutted and consequently their kitchen things are scattered around her house. My brother-in-law was complaining about what a pain it was having to go through multiple steps to do tasks that before the tear-out, had taken seconds and little thought. I jokingly called him a Negative Nellie and he said, “Oh, look who’s talking! If it were you you’d say, ‘All this is happening and we’re all gonna die anyway!’ I laughed and said, “We’ll all die sooner!” but it got me thinking.

Now I know that I talk a lot about death. All you have to do is read this blog to know that Pollyanna I am not, but just because I talk about death, does that make me a Negative Nellie? Or is it just realism? I mean I AM going to die, most likely from this disease. But that probability has no inherent negative value attached to it. In the parlance of our times - it is what it is. What then, makes it negative?

The thought of death and dying is, without a doubt, unpleasant for almost everyone. Because it’s unpleasant, it makes people uncomfortable. My question is, is it the discomfort felt by the listener about death (or any given unpleasant topic) rather than the topic itself that makes it (and by extension the broacher of the topic ) appear negative? I think so. So ultimately my alleged negativity is not really mine at all but the projected discomfort and negative feelings of the listener, i.e. my brother-in-law, onto the discusser, i.e. me, for an unpleasant topic, i.e. the impending doom of my death.

Dearest brother-in-law:  Word.

David Rakoff is Dead

A person whose writing I adored. Whose use of the English language I envied and admired. At 47 years old. Cancer.

It's an odd thing when someone you didn't really know, but followed in one way or another - or someone that you once knew, but haven't seen in years, dies.

Suddenly there's a hole. A piece missing. Something is not quite right with the fabric of the world.

His writing was phenomenal.

I will miss him.

The Wicked Witch and the Hourglass

There has been a lot going on lately. In my personal life, there have been a lot of family events. My youngest daughter came to visit with her family, my niece was married (for the first and hopefully the last time) and my oldest daughter had a daughter – her second. As a result, there has been a lot of time spent with family and it has been great.

In Cancer World, a lot has been going on, too. There has been some good news, people responding to treatment and having the last of their surgeries – excited to get their lives back to normal. But there have also been a fair amount of bad news. People, diagnosed around the same time as me, are not fairing so well. Some have been doing really well when one regular trip to the oncologist or quarterly scan shows that the cancer is back on the march. One person is now on hospice. It makes me wonder how much time do I have left? I was pondering this when a scene from The Wizard of Oz popped into my head. You know, the one where Dorothy has been captured by the Wicked Witch of the West who, because she can’t get her hands on those coveted ruby slippers, grabs a huge hourglass with ominous, blood-red sand, flips it over and pronounces, “This is how long you have to live!” Dorothy, much to the relief of anxious children watching, is eventually rescued by her friends.  

Like Dorothy, I feel like I’m living with one eye glued to my own hourglass – only I can’t see how much sand I have left. And there is no foreseeable rescue.  Cancer has become my own personal wicked witch and although I can keep her at bay for a while, the blood-red sand continues to pour…

                                         Drawing courtesy of Daughter Amy

Reflections on Life and Death while riding the ‘eL’ during the NATO Summit

     Against the wishes of my daughters, I was in the subway tunnel at Lake Street in Chicago waiting for the Red Line to take me north to work. A young woman entered and sat on a bench about 10 feet from me. There were already two men sitting there and she took the remaining seat between them. From her hands you could tell that she was dark-skinned (as were the men seated on the bench). She, however, was nearly fully veiled. She wasn’t wearing a complete burqa, but her head was completely covered except for her eyes, by two pieces of cloth. I think it’s called a niqab. She was dressed in a very baggy, long skirt, a baggy shirt and a baggy denim jacket. She carried three shoulder bags with her. She took a book out of one of the bags and started to read.

As the men noticed her, they each got up from the bench, moved away from her and stood. One looked at back at her and moved to a different area on the platform, presumably so he wouldn’t have to ride in the same car.

     Once we entered the train, people were watching her; glancing at her furtively and then looking around at others as if to say, “Do you see what’s over here? Should we be worried?” People entering the car at various stops would see her and move to the end of the car furthest from her. She exited the car at Truman City College. Just a student.

     Now I’ve got to say that I’ve been riding the subway/’eL’ system in Chicago for almost seven years now and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Therefore, my assumption is that it’s because of the NATO summit that people were so jittery about this girl. (Which is itself interesting because the people who seem to be protesting and getting accused of illegal activities are unveiled white men, but I digress.)

     Then I got to thinking that every day we go through life not thinking about it, but living with the reality that any moment could be our last. I suppose it is remotely possible that this young woman could have been a suicide bomber and, waiting for the proper moment, exploded herself and everyone in the ‘eL’ car with her. We hear stories like this from countries far away through an untrustworthy media; girls who blow themselves up for a cause. Because of this, the mere presence of this school girl made people think about bombings. About disaster. About death.

     What I seem to be finding with my ongoing death study is that people generally don’t talk about death (or think about it very much) until they have to. Until they or someone close to them is facing it.  And it’s no wonder; I mean it’s not a very pleasant topic in our culture– too many unknowns. And too much fear – of pain, of declining faculties, of eventual annihilation of the self. It’s pretty heavy. Some scholars claim that the topic of death is taboo in American culture. I wouldn’t go that far. I just think that people don’t like to talk about things that are unpleasant and sometimes upsetting.

     I would like to see, though, what a society would look like if people thought about it more. If they regularly pondered that any moment could result in their death. Not that they should go around being anxious about every choice and activity, but that maybe with considering their death, they would consider what impressions they may leave – or not leave on the places and people that they encounter on any given day.

     I like to think it would have positive affect. Maybe then people would not treat a girl like this with such contempt.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim and in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came


I say more: the just man justices
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ -- for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

~1918, Gerard Manley Hopkins

18 Months and Thriving!

Today is my 18-month Cancerversary and I am in a celebratory mood!

This is strange for me.

Being a budding scholar of death studies does not lend itself to much in the way of celebration...or happiness..or anything bright and shiny.

And recently, I have been feeling a LOT of survivor's guilt.

I'm starting a research project and the topic is, of course, death...and cancer...people who die of cancer...and I realize that a lot of people had a lot less time between diagnosis and death than I have, even at 18 months.

and so I was struggling with it - a sort of "why me?" only not the "I have cancer, why me?", but the "I'm not dead yet, why me?"

But that's not very useful, is it?

And I doubt very much that the people who have died of cancer after a short period of time would celebrate me being down in the dumps because I'm not dead yet.

They'd probably think that it was really stupid.

Which it is.

So, for all of those folks out there who have died of cancer, I live life for you! I celebrate life for you! I kick cancer's nasty rat ass for you!

As long as I possibly can.

Count on it.

Cancer at 2:00 am: Discussions with God

In our weekly meetings, Father Bob and I discuss various things. Cancer is inevitably a regular topic. A couple of weeks ago, he asked me if I talked to God about my cancer. I stuttered and sputtered for a moment and said, "No. I really don't feel the need." He looked amused and said that perhaps it's something that I should try. Grimacing, I told him that I would, but with misgivings.So, for one week, I tried to talk to God about cancer.

It did not go well.

All I did was get angry. And not necessarily about MY cancer, but about cancer in general. We can guess the hows and whys of why more and more people at younger and younger ages are getting cancer, but when it comes down to it, (if you believe in God) you have to accept that God either gave you cancer or allowed you to get cancer - presumably for ultimate good, but it's hard to see that when you read more and more stories of younger and younger people dying of cancers that used to be seen only in the elderly.

***Qualifier - this is not to say that lives of young people are of more value than those of the elderly, but old bodies have had a lifetime of being barraged with oxidants, so it makes more sense, medically, that they would get more cancers.***

The more I thought about it, the more angry and depressed I became. I would go over and over what cancer meant for the many people who, not only have it, but who love and care for those who have it, and finally thought that this comes down to questions about God's role in "natural evil" (although nowadays, I'm not sure that you can consider many cancer "natural evils" because of environmental factors). This has been argued for millennia and I'm certainly not going to be the one to figure it out.

So I stopped talking to God about cancer.

In general, anyway. I know that when I think of my cancer and my cancer treatment and how well it's gone, especially in comparison to others, many of whom are younger, I am nothing but deeply and profoundly grateful.

My discussions with God now lean toward requests for direction. Okay, I'm still here. I have this time. What do You want me to do with it? Please show me what You want me to do with it and also, let me know that with some certainty that what I think that You're showing me, is really what You want me to do.

I'd like to think that what He wants is something big and profound. But my guess is that it will be a 15 second seemingly innocuous conversation with a complete stranger.

I wonder if I'll ever know.