The thing about cancer, is that it made me face my death. I’ve seen the clock wind down. I’ve watched it get close to it’s final hour. It came so unexpected. As it does. In one hand I held the beginning of life, my newborn son… and in the other hand I held a leukemia diagnosis. If that doesn’t change your whole perspective on life, I don’t know what will. It’s freeing to not be wrapped up in society’s clutches though. To see life for all that it is.
My first experience with death… Death that was personal and off the timeline of growing old, was my brother. He was 32. He was out on a boat with his fiancé and her family. He pulled himself out of the water and onto the dock, stumbled, and passed out. He came to. Had a seizure. Said he couldn’t breathe. Then nothing. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. My big brother. He died from a pulmonary embolism, a massive blood clot in his lung. It was so unexpected. It seemed impossible at the time. That was when I fully became aware of mortality.
Then when I was 30 I had a tumultuous pregnancy. I was diagnosed with cancer. I was 32 when I beat it. When I turned 33 it was hard to believe I had lived longer than my oldest brother. Part of me thought my fate was tied to his. That we were both going to die young. But here I was. For now at least… then it happened to me too. One morning I started coughing up blood. And sure enough, they found I had a bunch of blood clots in my lungs. I was 34, now 2 years older than my brother. But unlike him, I survived. It was a years recovery this time. It was harder than battling cancer too because there was a bit of survivors guilt tied to this encounter with death. Why did he have to die? This was the second time I faced my death, and it was harder to bounce back from.
While most people deal with the day to day obstacles that life throws at them, I find myself feeling so detached from a normal life. It’s a blessing in many ways, but it’s also hard to find your place in normal society. The more I speak my story though, I find others. So many of us, battling the worst things in life, only to be thrown right back into the mix of ‘normalcy’. Too many of us don’t fit it’s puzzle anymore. And to those who do fit, they often want to avoid us. It’s always been a burning question for me. Do they avoid us because we’re different, and we don’t fit their picture of what is right and normal. Or do they avoid us because we bring up everything they’re trying to ignore about life and themselves? Ignorance is bliss.
This then makes me reflect on the past year. How so many of us have just fully gone off the rails. Clutching to a president like he’s a savior. Coming up with conspiracy theories. Trying to find a sense of control in the madness. The need to find someone to blame. The ever standing question of Why. There usually aren’t cut and dry answers to this. It will drive you insane trying to figure it out. So just stop.
With coronavirus, Many people are facing actual death. And those who aren’t, are facing the death of the life they knew and held dear. Normalcy, as we all knew it, is gone. And the chaos is everyone trying to cling on to it. How I see it, is that we need to let go. Let go of how we think things should be. Let go of our denial. Let go of our sense of control, because it’s only fabricated anyway. Let go of the need for power, because power is an illusion. It’s not until we face the truth of our existence, the impermanence of life and everything we build, that we can move forward. We’re so stuck in 2020. And 2021 has brought the fallout. It’s not until we do something different, that things will change. I have hope though. The process of change is a difficult one. I know that we will land on our feet. Why? Because to assume anything else, is when we seal our own fate.
The Thing About Cancer... 