Disclaimer: If you are offended by certain four-letter expletives, please either skip to the next post or simply navigate away at this time, because I won't censor these words for the remainder of this post. Thank you.
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Fuck cancer. Yes, you read that right...FUCK cancer. For a lot of people who've dealt with losing loved ones to this totally despicable, dignity-robbing, life-destroying disease, saying "FUCK cancer" might actually feel good, and as well, it might release pent up anger and/or ease the helplessness we often feel, even if for only a few seconds. At least, for me it does.
But in any case, you know what they say when it comes to anger, don't you? Yes, they say, "Don't hang on to anger!"? From men of the cloth, to your New Aged gurus, from your family, to your coworkers----people admonish us to not hang on to anger.
Okay, on its face, that seems like reasonable enough advice, doesn't it? Sure. So, now what? What's the best way to not hang on to anger? Welp, best as I can tell, you let that shit out, that's what. Yes, so that's just what I'm about to do, and again, if you are easily offended by four-letter expletives, I suggest that you navigate away at once, although, I've already typed "fuck" 3 times and "shit" 1 time, and you're still reading, so....
Anyway, yeah, cancer can fuck off. And by the way, I'm not only talking about anger and frustration that tends to arise when one feels totally helpless when faced with having to watch a loved one wither away to nothing - sometimes in a matter of months, other times in a matter of days - but in this case, I'm also talking about anger and frustration that arises when I witness something else that's truly mind-boggling. It's something that certain people with whom I share the planet, do. They do it, and the shit needs to stop.
So, let the record show that my sentiments towards the disease called "cancer" extend beyond the disease, itself. Yes, my sentiments towards cancer are extended to this notion, the bullshit notion, that cancer is somehow a warranted, necessary consequence. And no, I don't mean in what some might call a self-induced instance of cancer, like from smoking or chewing tobacco - although, I do confess that it can be unnerving to listen to some of the excuses that come from people who have a nicotine addiction - I mean a consequence to an imaginary trespass called "sin".
I should be clear: If someone believes that cancer and other human suffering is a direct result of "sin", then it's them I'm addressing. However, it should also be noted that I'm not saying, "Fuck cancer... and fuck you, too". No, I'm talking about an idea, here. I'm talking about a despicably horrible idea, one for which there is not one shred of evidence for being true. I'm talking about in instances when people will tell you with a straight face that cancer and other human suffering is because of "sin", well, except when it's someone they know. In that case, we hear things like "God needed another angel!", or "They're in a better place!", and the like.
Let's get one thing straight: There is no "better place" for a child than with his or her parents, the people who love them the most; the people who are actually, physically present, providing the things that, you know, a child actually needs? Seriously, now, does anyone really believe that a child would rather be singing some goddamned gospel hymns to a ghost, than be with his or her family pet??? If you do, you must've somehow forgotten what it's like to be a child, or maybe you never had a pet.
But that's animals, and that's one thing. There's our moms and dads, to consider, too, and that is quite another thing. 'Anyone ever see a small child become separated from his or her parents in a public place? Okay, now imagine that child being separated for another 40, 50, 60, etc. years from his or her parents(assuming for sake of discussion that a deceased child doesn't age in "Heaven" because the "spirit world" is not bound by space-time).
If you are a Christian, fine. And if you mean well, even better, but please think before you attempt to console grieving people by saying stupid shit. Yes, stupid shit. "They are in a better place!" is just stupid, unless by "better place" you mean dead, even though "dead" isn't technically a place.
Here's a suggestion, how about.... "They are no longer suffering"? Look, it's thoughtful, and it's actually factual, too. Imagine that.
Last month my aunt..i.e..my mom's younger sister and only sibling died of lung cancer that spread to her brain. She fought it for around 9 months. In a bizarre twist of fate, I and another family member went in one evening to visit her at hospice and noticed that she had fallen asleep early, so we decided to leave and check back later, since the hospice wasn't too far from my house. But then I noticed and even mentioned how bad my aunt looked, and a fraction of a second later I noticed no respiratory movement in her chest. She was dead. We had gone in, actually walked past a few nurses and into my aunt's room, and we discovered for ourselves that she had died only moments before.
Do I still have anger over certain things? If I said "no", I'd be a damned liar. My aunt, a life-long smoker, started smoking when she was 9 years old, and she died from it at age 66.
How does one respond to a heavy smoker who started smoking, essentially from the age of a flippin' child, when, in the midst of disease, they interject..."I was the last person I thought this would happen to"? Um...whaaa?...? No, god dammit, you're at the very top of the list of people who get lung cancer! Sheesh!
Of course, I didn't say that, but did I think it? Yes, I most certainly did think it. Anger? Yup, got it---angry at such mindsets; angry at myself for not handcuffing her and dragging her to the doctor approximately 5 years ago at the onset of symptoms, because that's what it would have taken to get her to the doctor. Yes, my aunt, along with my maternal grandmother, had the ol' "I know my own body better than anyone else!" mentality.
My aunt self-diagnosed, writing-off her daily morning dry cough as "allergies", and now she's dead because of it. This is not to say that cancer would not have taken her life eventually, but she could've bought more time had they caught it earlier, and they could've caught it earlier had she listened to our multiple pleas to get it checked.
But alas, you cannot make adults, especially ones with substance addictions, do what they do not want to do.
As time goes on, the anger (and guilt) has subsided... some. Make no mistake, I loved my aunt very much. She was the most selfless person I had ever known, next to her mom(my grandmother) and her sister(my mom). I am writing this mostly to vent openly. It is like therapy, in a sense.
While I loved "Tia" very much, I very much hated some of her mindsets, one of which, directly shortened my time with her on this planet. Look, we can love people, but yet, hate ideas. There are, yes, some ideas that I hate, and it's particularly unnerving when we can demonstrate some ideas to be bad and even false, but people still cling to them. But that's what "faith" is for, isn't it? Whatever.
But no matter how you slice it, human suffering is part of life, whether we contribute to it directly, or not. I just choose to accept this, and in doing so, the need to make flimsy excuses for why we suffer vanishes. And besides, in a world with no "Divine" overseer, we'd fully expect to see disease and human suffering, and voila, that's precisely what we see. There just isn't enough "faith" for me to write that off as a big "coincidence".
RIP "Tia"
