Cancer is a thing that is increasingly common in the world. We’ve all seen the headlines about the increase in colon cancer among younger populations, but it isn’t just colon cancer. Breast cancer, uterine cancer, pancreatic, prostate, and kidney cancers are all on the rise. The good news is that we’re catching more of them early. The bad news is that we still don’t have a ton of standard screenings, and in many cases people are still not getting diagnosed until they are symptomatic in some way. Which, honestly, is often too late.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, having lost a family member to pancreatic cancer, and now have another who has been diagnosed with a stage 4 cancer. Not to mention friends and family who have had breast cancer, or have died from aggressive cancers that didn’t give symptoms until it was much too late.
I know, some of this is a product of aging. But much of it is a product of the world we have grown up in. I’ll spare you the rants about processed foods, air pollution, asbestos, and other environmental causes of these illnesses. You’ve heard them before, and that’s not the point here.
The point here is... well, I don’t know. I’m still processing this latest family situation. I just wish that there could be a bit of a respite from family health emergencies and the world seeming to fall apart around our ears. The last six years have been a LOT.
At the same time, there is a part of me that is struggling to live in all of the moments of joy that I can find or jump into. Not as a way to pretend that things aren’t grim, but to provide a bit of a remove for a little while, so that I can catch my breath and gather myself for the next challenge. So that I can feel as if I haven’t wasted my life by simply wallowing in the worst it’s handed me.
We were watching a show last weekend, and one of the lines said to someone who had spent much too long inside their grief, “Life is meant to be LIVED.”
That’s stuck with me, especially today as I felt the energy of oncoming Spring. The sky was blue, the air was crisp but comfortable, the air was fresh, and I felt energized and joyful. Then... I felt guilty. I have a family member fighting for their life in a hospital, there is a war in the Middle East, immigrants are being taken from their homes and families here stateside, and I am... wanting to dance? To roll in the grass and appreciate the late-winter blossoms appearing in my front yard?
It feels wrong...
But it also feels right.
If there is one, very early lesson I learned from my family, it’s that life is best lived with humor, love, and joy. Take those things away, and it becomes a sort of grim torture just to wake up each morning and continue existing. That’s not the life I want for myself, or my family.
If I am the one diagnosed tomorrow with an aggressive, incurable cancer, I will spend my remaining days living to the hilt. I will want my friends and loved ones to do the same. Not to ignore the grief and anguish they may feel, but also not to dive into it and live there. To remember that joy is healing, laughter is essential, and love persists long after we are gone. That when I am gone, I won’t really be gone, because I will live on in the grief and love that I leave behind.
I want to look back on my life, and know that I truly lived.