My Mom has cancer. What more to say? Cancer sucks. It’s scary and unknowable. When someone you love has cancer you enter a world in which time doesn’t flow in the same way it does in the rest of the universe. You spend endless time waiting, waiting and waiting, only to enter periods where time is accelerated and events come crashing down on you with frightening speed. You feel unbalanced and out of step with the rest of the world, yet somehow more focused, like you had gotten used to watching analog TV and suddenly switched to the HD channel. Each blade of grass is defined with cutting clarity. The sky is bluer. The sun is brighter. You want to soak it all in; to inhale until your lungs burst, to stare straight into the sun. When someone you love has cancer, you learn how fragile and fleeting an individual life can be amongst all the wild and prolific and indestructible force of collective life.
One thing the cancer journey will teach you is that your sense of control is an illusion. There are forces in life – big, strong forces – that you simply can’t control. And it’s this lesson that has been hardest for me, that has herded me inexorably down. And it’s not just personal control: I never thought that I, personally, could stop my mom’s cancer. No; but I certainly had faith in humanity – strong, powerful, innovative humanity. I had faith that someone, somewhere would be able to fix it. Take it out, kill it with radiation or drugs or something. So far, they haven’t been able to, but we still fight and hope and – most importantly – live. But it’s different. We do it while also knowing that we are not in control – and indeed that we never were.
This need to let go of the illusion of control reminds me a lot of Buddhist teachings about the nature of suffering and freedom from suffering. Basically (and I am so oversimpifying this, I know) attachment to illusions (of control, of selfhood, of finding happiness in possessions) leads to suffering. Letting go of those illusions can reduce suffering. Or at least make the uncertainty more bearable.
And that is what I mean by the cancer factor. It’s a radical new way of looking at life: one that accepts uncertainty and the loss of the illusion of control. And it might just be a truer way of looking at life after all.
Beautifully written. I have felt and continue to feel every one of the intense emotions that you have described. You’ve inspired me to reread “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron. I read it a few years back…but I think the lessons are so wise. I will continue to keep you and your family in my thoughts and prayers.
Amber
“Chödrön’s book is filled with useful advice about how Buddhism helps readers to cope with the grim realities of modern life, including fear, despair, rage and the feeling that we are not in control of our lives . . . Chödrön demonstrates how effective the Buddhist point of view can be in bringing order into disordered lives.”—Publishers Weekly
i love the way you describe the emotional rollercoaster of illness. this line is beautiful and brilliant:
“The sky is bluer. The sun is brighter. You want to soak it all in; to inhale until your lungs burst, to stare straight into the sun. When someone you love has cancer, you learn how fragile and fleeting an individual life can be amongst all the wild and prolific and indestructible force of collective life.”
great piece Kath – your writing gets better and better!
I may be a long way away but my heart is constantly with you all.
A book my family found inspiring was “Two Old Women – An Alaska Legend of betrayal, Courage, and Survival.” by Velma Walis.
It is a fast read, and reminds us of the value found in the struggle to survive.
Thinking of you all with an ache in my heart.