When Cancer Touches Your Life
Written: mid 2022, father was diagnosed March 2020, father passed in November 1st 2024
An exploration of what it means to live with a parent who has cancer. I’ve been exceptionally confused for the past 2.5 years, more confused than normal. You see here’s the deal, I thought I was exempt. I thought in my version of life, there wouldn’t be cancer, car accidents, suicide and heart break. Those were things from movies and other people’s stories, not mine. Fear not reader, for I have awoken from that illusion.
The diagnosis came 2.5 years ago. Since then, I’ve started to see layers to the complexity of life as a human revealed to me. I thought I’d experienced some complex life experiences and had a decent understanding of life as a human up until the diagnosis. I’d never really spent time in the part of life where grief lies. I hadn’t faced the mystery and suspense of my own mortality and that of those I love.
I consider myself an introspective and observant person. I’m intuitive and easily pick up subtle information others might miss. I often observe the patterns of my thoughts, behaviors and notice general themes i.e. I find myself worrying about X, or trying to control Y… I observe myself to assess, adapt, and learn.
When I entered into this new part of life, the part with grief, I started watching new themes dance across the inside of my mind’s eye. An ongoing performance, each one weaves in and out of center stage, it holds a pose and I ponder it for a few moments, then it moves onto the next movement in its dance. Each time a theme makes an appearance on the stage I don’t quite have enough time to understand it. I can’t get a detailed 360 degree view of it at any one time, but with close observation, each time it holds a new pose for just a moment I comprehend its lesson a little bit more.
A new star pose of the show recently appeared. My external reality has presented the theme of entitlement onto my inner stage for me to ponder and examine. I never thought of myself as entitled. My parents instilled a work ethic in me that has allowed me to reach my goals and reap the benefits of hard work
Entitlement has posed in a way I didn’t know it could. I didn’t think I was entitled to get whatever I wanted whenever I wanted without having to put in the work and cut through some red tape to get there. However, I’ve learned that I did believe I was owed a life of beauty, creativity, peace, justice, ease of mind and joy. I believed these were owed to me for simply being alive and that I didn’t have to put in any effort to have a life full of these virtues. I felt entitled to the brighter side of life, a life where shadows stepped aside as I walked along my path.
Slowly, I have learned that, yes, I do deserve the virtues stated, and more. They are not freely given, though. What is freely given is the opportunity to learn how to cultivate these virtues. I am on this planet to learn lessons that my higher power has called on my soul to learn and I am not owed anything but the opportunity to learn from a damn good lesson plan.
To live is to learn, to endure. Life does not owe me ease of mind, smooth sailings, and for things to just work out. However, I am owed the opportunity to figure out how to ease my mind, create a smooth path forward, and to make things work out. I am required to examine the themes in my life as they dance across the stage of my mind, learn from them and create a happy life. I owe that to myself and to my soul.
I am not owed a life without cancer, grief, pain, unrest and suffering. I am owed the opportunity to endure. I am owed the opportunity to examine themes of duality, suffering, perspective and attitude. As these themes come and go in beautiful patterns across the stage of my mind’s eye each time I learn a little more about the curvature of their body and the sound of their breath. They pause and I explore them to understand what their beauty is teaching me.
Each day I take another step, each moment I take another breath and I pray for life. I know now that to live is to endure. To live is to come to a new challenge and rise above again and again. There is no road map to solve each challenge, for they are not a problem to solve, but a lesson to be learned. A road map isn’t needed, though, for we always have our north star within us. The simple beating in our chest will tell us what to do next, where to go, what’s in alignment.
My world needed to be turned upside down. This way, I learned to see the tree of life from a different perspective. I have been granted the opportunity to examine themes from a different angle and more fully comprehend the lessons I’m required to learn for the evolution of my soul.
You see, it’s not easy to live with a parent or any loved one with cancer. I am powerless over the cancer’s progression or remission. I’ll continue to observe the show and learn from the lessons presented.
