Collateral Damage

My son introduced me to a web site that displays postcards on which people have written, anonymously, their secrets.  It is a powerful site that is, by turns, funny, tragic, poignant, and flippant.  The cards change every week, and I now have a weekly ritual of looking at the site to see what is new.

This week’s secrets all involve Mother’s Day, and you can imagine the range of sentiments displayed in the cards.  (Everything from Ozzie and Harriet to Mommie Dearest.)  One card, though, has stuck with me.  The write states: 

I am not going to cope when my mom has lost her battle with cancer. 

I am going to kill myself.

I hope there is an afterlife.

I have watched a lot of people grieve over the years.  Some people they hide their grief behind a mask of nonchalance or aloofness.  Others share their grief through shrieks of pain that seem to rend the soul.  I have thought many times that there is no bad way to grieve, that we all find our way through pain and loss in a way that works for us.  Now I am not so sure.

I admire people who find some way to create something positive out of their grief.  The woman whose mother recently died of colon cancer, and called me about volunteering because she is absolutely committed to ending the disease that took her mother from her.  The man who is battling cancer and working out the anger of having his body turned against him by talking to others who are newly diagnosed.  People who use their anger and sadness to fuel a new passion for helping others are, in my view, truly remarkable.

I understand that not everyone can do this.  Some people run as far away from the cancer world as possible, looking for some sense of peace.  This, too, is remarkable, in its own way.

But to respond to the loss of your mother by taking your own life—that is beyond my ability to accept.  I do understand it.  Years ago a good friend of mine swallowed a bottle of pills.  He told me, “I didn’t really think about killing myself.  I just wanted the pain to stop and this was the only way I could think of to make that happen.”  Understanding is not acceptance, though. Taking your life because your mother—the one who gave you life in the first place, who gave birth to you in pain and blood and joy and tears—seems the ultimate irony and insult.

So I don’t quite know what to do about this secret on a post card, don’t quite know how to think about it.  One thing is certain, though.  Cancer causes a lot of collateral damage.  It doesn’t just impact the patient.  It touches everyone that person touches, and no-one is ever the same.  Maybe our task today is to reach out to those secondary victims.  To extend our support and care beyond the patient to their loved ones.  After all, they, too, are members of the cancer family, too.

Comments

[Christa]

I have found that the support on the CRC Connections site helps a lot - thanks for pointing me there!