This is article is dedicated to our Dad and all other families who deal with cancer.

Our dad passed away 5 years ago from cancer. When we found out he had cancer and in the process of fighting for his life, I was amazed at all the intense emotions I had. I was angry, sad, confused, bewildered, determined, consumed and didn’t know how to deal with it or what I could learn from having both him and our family facing such an uncomfortable challenge. I wrote this at three in the morning one evening as I tried to describe the emotions that both I and my family were going thru, as well as see what we could learn from the experience. Since that time I have become aware of so many families who have had loved ones face cancer. It is extremely emotional and heartbreaking. I hoped that perhaps our experience could help you know that you are not alone and might help you in your own trials in dealing with this disease.

Upon hearing someone has cancer; we usually shake our heads in sorrow and feel pity for the victims and their families. Occasionally, we might read a statistic on how prevalent and common cancer is. One in every three men will have prostate cancer. We might react with shock or disbelief that such a scary disease can be so common and far reaching. We might hear warnings on how awful cancer is and all the precautionary steps we can take to try to avoid it. Don’t drink, don’t smoke and wear sunscreen. We hear words like chemo and radiation and shudder at the unpleasant images it conjures up, thankful that is something only other people experience. It is almost like reading about a foreign culture. It is interesting and sad but far away.

But you never really know what cancer is, until the statistic has a face. When someone you love has cancer you come face to face with this dreadful disease and the havoc it wrecks on those it strikes. All of a sudden it is personal.

One day, you are making plans for picnics and parties and the next day you are taking about paralyzation and prognosis. Someone with vigor and health is suddenly weak and tired. You see them age decades in just a few weeks. While before they could be as active as they chose to be, they now do not know how much they can move without encountering their ever present companion, pain. Constant and close, cancer encases its prey with pain.

In one short week, your house becomes a library of cancer research. Every book and tape on health and cancer is researched and bought. Cabinets are stocked, overflowing with vitamins and minerals and supplements you had never even heard of before. Each seems to hold a hidden promise of containing the magical ingredient that will make everything all right again. From bookshelves to the media, voices scream out, each touting that they have found the cure, the secret, and the miraculous answer that has eluded the rest of the population. While some are sincere and somewhat helpful, others are charlatans and vultures. Opportunistically preying on those desperate for hope and answers, selling hope wrapped in useless, lying information, enriching themselves by and at the expense of those who are at their most vulnerable and in their most desperate moments.

All of a sudden everyone has cancer or knows of someone who has it. You feel you have so much company and yet you still feel so alone. Suddenly, your world has changed and you are confronting a vicious, insidious enemy that seems to delight in escaping and bewildering those who try to eradicate it. This extremely unwelcome and unwanted intruder makes its presence known on every aspect and moment of your life.

Bottles of drugs are taken -not to kill the cancer, for there is nothing powerful enough, but to combat the pain. Cancer is too strong of a tormentor to handle on your own unaided. In desperation to fight cancers destroying effects, one must try equally unpleasant therapies. How about amputation, chemotherapy or radiation? No matter what you choose or what is available, the side effects still insure you will not escape from unpleasant effects. The cancer seems to have you in a catch 22 – doomed if you don’t do something and doomed if you do.

Reading about the options available to your loved one makes you want to plead with the doctors. “No, don’t you understand? They are already in so much pain. They can’t take any more. Please that is enough. Just put them to sleep and do what you need to so they can then wake up and things will be normal.” How can such a painful disease have no cure? How can we be too powerless to fight it with all of the advances our generation enjoys?

The cancer doesn’t seem to listen that there is still so much life to be enjoyed. There are plans and dreams still to be fulfilled. Not only for the person with cancer, but for all those around them too. There are recitals to see, birthday cakes to blow out, late night phone calls to answer, children’s weddings to attend, graduations to delight in, household emergencies to help handle, grandkids to read stories to and to read undecipherable letters that they will send, anniversaries to celebrate, advice to dole out and memories still unborn. Don’t you care cancer? Don’t you have a heart? Not now. This wasn’t in the plan. Don’t rob us of someone we love and need. Don’t make them suffer. Don’t make us say good-bye. We have too many days yet to live with them.

I want to confront the cancer and tell it is not welcome at our house. It was never invited. It does not belong. Perhaps, it is a big mistake. It was going somewhere else and stopped at the wrong place instead. It is a big misunderstanding and once I explain that, it will move on. Perhaps it does not realize the intrusion it is causing and the unnecessary pain it invokes. Perhaps, it will say I’m so sorry; I did not know and move on.

But perhaps it does not feel sorrow. Perhaps it is an evil that rejoices in the havoc it creates. Then I will tell the heartless, worthless disease, fine, come and try to bring misery and pain to our house but please not now. Come back in twenty years and we will accept you then, but not now.

In every scenario, I ever envisioned in both me leaving this earth or my family it was never like this. I knew my parents would die sometime. I knew they would someday suffer infirmities that would be hard to witness but not now. Not so soon. Didn’t anyone read the plan? When they were 80, 90 maybe even 100, ok then I would understand life-threatening illness but not now. Not with children in high school. Not with never being able to retire and do the things you wanted. Not with children not yet married and unborn grandchildren you haven’t marveled and held and laughed with. There are trips you haven’t taken. Plans still to carry out. There is a life that still has yet to be lived.

Then, I think ok, I have at least forty more years of plans and dreams we could fill up in this life but if that is not possible that’s fine. I might cry and fight and scream but you can’t take away the years I’ve had. Cancer can’t destroy the memories and experiences we have. Cancer can’t take away the advice I’ve received, the jokes we’ve shared, the tribulations we have endured together, the time we’ve shared, the dreams we’ve hoped for, the growth we’ve witnessed in each other, the accomplishments we’ve cheered at, the disappointments we’ve helped comfort each other in. The relationships we’ve built and love we’ve shared.

If you want to fight, cancer, we’ll fight you. I don’t care what other lives you’ve ruined you won’t ruin ours. Just wait, we have a lot planned for you. You can do your best but you have met your match. We will search and try and pray and do everything under the sun before we give into you. You will at last be beaten down, begging for mercy, until we stomp you out for good.

Other times it does not seem real. I will wake up from this unreal nightmare and be relieved that things are back to normal. Wow, that was close. How silly to think something so foreign could enter our ordinary life. Perhaps, I’ll be a little more grateful and appreciative of all we have now that I’ve imagined what could happen if it changed. Times up, I’ll announce and we will quit acting in this bizarre play that suddenly isn’t fun anymore. Somehow, we got sidetracked and started acting like this awful disease had come into our lives. I’m not quite sure why and how but we got off-track and let’s stop playing mow and just go back to normal.

Or maybe the doctors are confused. They don’t know what they are doing. They read the wrong test. Maybe cancer would be bad in an ordinary person but they don’t realize that our father is immune. They are giving him drugs and preparing for treatments because they do not understand it doesn’t affect him like everyone else. They will be so relieved when they do the tests and realize that cancer cannot touch him. Sorry, they will laugh, we didn’t realize the cancer is incompatible with your body. You had nothing to worry about. Go home and tell your family to stop worrying. We are sorry we goofed up. You will be healthy for a long time. Whew, we will say, that was quite a scare, don’t do that again. Or on April fool’s day, dad will have proven he just pulled the biggest trick on us. Ok, you win, we’ll say, you completely and truly had us convinced but deep down we knew it couldn’t have been real.

Getting behind slow cars driving, I find myself even more impatient then usual. Are they deliberately, trying to prevent me from seeing my dad? DO they know how much time they are taking away from us? Hey, I want to yell out, my dad has cancer. Are you happy? You really want me to miss seeing him? You really want to go so slow when you know I don’t have much time? Probably, if I got there 5 minutes earlier, I would have found the cure for him, but if I don’t now it’s probably your fault. Or maybe if I get there fast enough, I can stop the pain, but you have to let me get up there to do that.

I go past a golf course. Dad belongs there, I think. It was almost yesterday that I remember him playing. Now, other people are over there laughing and talking about inconsequential things like golf scores. I realize that they must not have heard my dad has cancer. Hey, I’ll announce, did you hear my dad has cancer? Horrified, they will shake their heads no, immediately lay down their clubs and follow me in a big caravan of cars to his house. With all of the people there someone will be sure to know how to make it better. It’s probably something so little and obvious that we will be shaking our heads on how we could have even overlooked it.

I’m blown away at the injustice of cancer. We all know the risk factors. My dad didn’t drink or smoke and was pretty healthy. Sure, maybe he ate his share of desserts and didn’t exercise as much as he could have, but isn’t that all of us? Plus, he is such a good guy with such a clean life, he doesn’t deserve it. If you don’t do those things, cancer should leave you alone. If you don’t want cancer, it should leave you alone.

My anger increases at those who manufacture tobacco. If such an awful disease can come unbidden and unplanned, what about those products that can knowingly cause this kind of sorrow and tragedy? I want to shake those involved. Do you know what you’re doing, I’ll demand. Did you know what pain you’ll cause? I want to go to the store and watch someone purchase cigarettes. Then, I will kick them hard in their shins. Maybe punch their arms a few times. Just want you to know what your bones are going to feel like, I’ll say. I’ll ask for a framed picture of their favorite dream and then I’ll throw it down until it shatters in a million pieces, just so they know what to expect. Then I’ll ask them to pick out names for their children and grandchildren that they won’t be able to enjoy and see much of. Don’t you see what they are trying to do, I’ll plead? Don’t choose this misery willingly. How deceitful to not realize the exact horrific consequence from a seemingly inconsequential act.

I tell others my dad has cancer. I’m sorry, they say and then act like things are normal. No! I want them to agree this is some big joke. People in my family don’t get cancer. It’s just not us. We wouldn’t know what to do.

Sometimes an artist will take a familiar object and place it in an unfamiliar setting for shock value. For instance, a fur covered teacup. That is what cancer is. We’ve taken my dad and put him into some strange cancer world where he doesn’t belong and is a misfit.

The cancer has spread all over his body. It’s in his prostate, bones and lungs. I don’t know what that means but I assume it isn’t good. A long time ago, (a few days ago, but these days that is an eternity ago), I decided that it didn’t matter what the doctors say. Other than to give us a diagnosis and suggest some forms of treatment, which was all they could do. To tell us that things are hopeless, dismal or report what his end would be, I would not accept. You always hear of miracles. I know if God has one planned for us, it will happen, so I don’t care what the doctors say.

I think in some ways, I still have not accepted or do not understand what is going on. Our family has always been close, but I feel even closer now. My brothers and sisters are my best friends. I admire and love how supportive and helpful they are. We are charting unfamiliar territory and it is nice to have so many close by to embark on the journey with. We experience the highs and lows together. It is wonderful to have so many shoulders to lean on and ears to cry in. I am amazed at the wisdom and perceptions as they share their feelings and thoughts. I am touched as I behold their selflessness and sacrifices. All of a sudden, nothing they want is important anymore and they generously wish to give and give beyond even what they are capable of. While I knew I had good family members with kind hearts, I am amazed at the spiritual giants emerging around me. I see heroism daily.

My dad lifts us all up as he jokes around with us. Mom has him on the most restrictive diet ever known to man. I watch him give up everything appetizing and edible in amazement at his willpower. I’m amazed at my mom’s expertise and determination. The lengths she will go to ensure he is eating the most pure and healthy food available is mind-boggling. There is nutrient for every part of his body, from his muscles to his mitochondria. As he drinks his organic freshly juiced carrot juice, he remarks how it tastes just like a Dove bar, without the chocolate, ice cream and Dove.

His positive spirit elevates those around him. When people are around he is always joking and smiling. It is hard to imagine dad without a smile on his face. His good nature and fun loving personality has always worked as a magnet, drawing people to him. His enthusiasm and optimistic nature give hope to those around him. He is extremely likable and I can’t think of anyone who has ever not liked my dad. Wherever he goes, he seems to instinctively make friends no matter how short the visit or what the situation is.

I’m so grateful for my belief in God at this time. To know that there is a God who loves us and is aware of our needs and wants is so reassuring. I feel comforted so often. What I need to do now is to trust in Him and in his will. I always feel that I should tell God how things should go, but as I have aged and have witnessed an overwhelming abundance of evidence on how foolish some of my choices may be, I have tried to accept that someone knows better than me. While I desire certain outcomes, I am trying to trust that God is aware of us and our needs at this time and will watch out for us. If he feels that what I want is not the best now, I know it is only because he has something better planned. I know beautiful things can happen from sometimes seemingly tragic situations.

It is cold, gray and dismal outside. How appropriate that the heavens are darkened on this day as we receive news we had hoped not to hear. It truly feels that the sky grieves with us and understands our pain at having to entertain thoughts that were previously inconceivable. It is much better this way. To have a bright, sunny, carefree day now would seem so impersonal.

While I still feel I do not comprehend what is going on-I am saddened at some of the changes our family most undergo, I still belief that in a short time everything will go back to how it has always been. Nothing new will be permanent. This is a short inconvenience that we will grow from. We will take the lessons we have learned but nothing else.

Just then I realize how true that is. We will take the lessons and nothing else. That is what life and our experience is all about. The lessons we learn will remain with us. The character we forge as we encounter different challenges will be who we become forever. But all the other things will go away. The pain, the sadness, the fear, and the burdens-those are only temporary. Perhaps that is one reason God allows us to suffer some of the things he does. He knows it is only a short temporary experience, but the lessons we learn from it are priceless and eternal. This trying time that we go through is temporary but the goodness it creates in all of us can last forever.

I know that all our material possessions we must leave behind. I know that as I was born, so I must die. I also know that I will live beyond the grave and will join those who have already left this earth already. It is wonderful to know that death is a temporary good-bye. I will reunite with those I love someday. What is hard is sometimes it might be a bit longer separation than you had hoped for.

I know my family, my relationships, my memories, and my knowledge will last forever. This life cannot destroy that. Cancer cannot hurt that. Everything painful in this life will have an end but not us. This is a temporary experience for my dad and us –one that can last five days or fifty years. His body can get either better or worse. Someday we will all greet death. Often sooner than we expect. Knowing that enables me to greet cancer as a friend. An unwelcome friend that I am wary of but I know it will bring us gifts we could have no other way.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

No related posts.