The Price Is Fear

I am reminded that cancer impacts the entire family, biological and beyond.  This is because a fitness colleague reached out about the loss of his sister.  We had chatted off and on about her battle with breast cancer; ten long years, and he wanted me to know that he lost her back in February.  Clearly, he’s still grieving and seeking out people who understand what he and his family have suffered through. 

I do get it, I truly do. 

Tragic as it is, losses like these help me to remember that I’m not the center of the universe. Well, maybe the I-survived-cancer-and-am-special-universe but not every universe is all about me.  Sometimes, it’s about my family and my friends too.  I know they are scared, even though I’m doing so well and feeling stronger every day and there is positively no sign of the cancer returning.  Even then. 

Cancer, it’s just got to be the curse that just keeps on giving.   

You never stop looking over your shoulder nor apparently, do your loved ones. And if you succumb, your family bears the loss for the rest of their lives. I thank my lucky stars that little CJ, my grand-baby, is too young to know what all this is about.  She is the only family member who I can gaze at, any time, and never see fear in her sapphire blue eyes.  She has her great grandfather’s eyes though my daughter would be quick to say they are her father’s eyes.  OK, tomato, tamato, no fear in those baby blues.  I dread the day, far into the future, when we have to explain to Baby CJ that Nana was ‘sick’ when she was in her mommy’s tummy and that while well now, yes, Nana could get sick again.  Anybody can get sick for that matter.  I don’t want to see the look of fear in her perfect, innocent eyes.  I don’t want to see that look in anybody’s eyes for that matter.  I want my daughter, my friends and the rest of my family to all feel safe.  Safe as in pre-cancer safe but they will never feel that way again.  Me fighting cancer taught us all that nobody is safe, life is random and bad things happen to nice people who follow the rules.   

I just realized something profound; my family and loved ones will never feel entirely safe again.  My long-time beau is probably the exception to this; he’s had burning roofs fall on his head and been inches outside the deadly blast perimeter from a house blowing up.  His chief would later confess to me that he thought he was going to have to call me in California and tell me Bob didn’t make it out alive and all because of a static-y two-way radio that muddled communications that dangerous day.  I think Bob aged his boss ten years in ten minutes though he took the actual blast in his stride.  And when a fiery roof fell in on his head, my beau’s reaction was to get fuming mad that his favorite fire retardant gloves were badly damaged and he therefore would need to break in a new pair.  Bob has perspective; I have to give him that, and he knows better than to ever feel safe given his chosen profession.   

The year before I was diagnosed with cancer, Bob and I both lost our mothers.  His on Valentine’s Day, mine on Thanksgiving Day.  We obviously are not big on chocolates, goofy cards or turkey dinners.  One would think I would have learned that bad things can happen randomly but no, it wasn’t until cancer that I felt my entire world upend.  Even losing two maternal figures within nine months of each other did not derail me the way cancer did.  And by derail I mean that my entire sense of safety, my carefully constructed world of discipline and duty, family and devotion, the rules of fair play I lived my entire life by, they all came into question.  What good was discipline if doing everything right got me cancer?  What good was family devotion if I was only going to cause them all such grief and worry and pain?  Why be so dutiful and follow the rules if my reward was, again I say, cancer? 

Let us just say that being around me during those fateful months where I questioned every core value that I had, was not a pretty time.   But it got better.  I slowly recovered, as did my foundation; the morals and values I lived my life by survived intact.

If not a bit tattered around the edges.  

Cancer does that, rocks your world, your reality, to its core and I now realize it does the very same thing to friends and family, loved ones all.   The only thing you can hope for is that you fight the good fight and get to stick around long enough to see the fear leave their eyes, if only temporarily.  

If that’s the price I have to pay for sticking around, I’ll gladly pay it.