This is what a hospice nurse said the patient said:
“My cancer is a gift from God.”
What is your first reaction to that? How about: You’ve got to be kidding! Or: Does that patient have a terminal and mental illness? Or you’d be speechless and roll your eyes . . . or shake your head and mutter several tsk-tsks . . . or clamp your jaw shut because your mother told you if you didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.
Or would you nod your head in reluctant agreement?
Can you imagine that last reaction—nodding and agreeing—to the patient’s pronouncement? I can, though it helped to hear the nurse’s report of the patient’s complete sentence:
“My cancer is a gift from God because it has brought my children closer.”
So far, in my not-so-young life, I’ve had several modest traumatic events that became change agents for my attitude toward self, others, and the world. One happened in the year I turned thirty. My left leg met an outcropping of granite during a tumble down a mountain slope. Multiple bones were broken. I ended up in a cast for months, dependent upon other people for the bulk of that time. Before that literal and metaphoric break, a divorce from five years before had been festering in my soul. I often doubted myself, sometimes loathed myself, and careened between thinking today was bad but tomorrow could be worse. It wasn’t just the divorce; there were other negatives that weighed me down. Nonetheless, I figured to “tough it out” on my own. The break broke me. I became dependent. I saw people and the world (and me) with different, more forgiving eyes.
A token broken leg is nothing compared to a fatal cancer diagnosis. Except that both may open literal eyes and metaphoric hearts.
I didn't know details about the patient’s family. Families can wallow in a history of poor communication. Families have children or parents or both that have battled each other for years. A family’s lack of mutual support could be as mundane as the adult children living in different area codes or continents. A family’s troubles can include complexities like a gay son coming out to religiously conservative parents or a parent’s second marriage to someone that irked all of the kids. Some anger can be explained. Some can’t. In his honest “The Four Things That Matter Most,” hospice physician Ira Byock wrote, “I have long thought that the phrase dysfunctional family is redundant.” Oh, how I agree!
Why does it take a crisis to change us? Why does it take a calamity to nudge one person to appreciate the other? Why does a family, whether amusingly or disastrously dysfunctional, come together when the worst occurs to a parent or sibling?
Of course, there's no guarantee a traumatic event like cancer will transform a family’s ancient anger or fresh fears. But often enough, the terrible or the tragic can spawn hope. I think that’s what was unfolding with that patient. With a relentless, opportunistic cancer destroying a parent’s body, the children put aside differences and worked together. They drove long miles or crossed emotional thresholds to support the “whole family.” I would never explain cancer as a “gift from God” (because I don’t believe God causes cancer to happen to people), but I understand the parent’s declaration.
Even when we have no choice, our choices matter. I know that patient did eventually die. A death certificate likely listed a grim disease. But in a parent’s final weeks or months, and I’m confident about this, love was shared with children, and memories were created that helped bring new life to a hurting family in the time following death.
Cancer as . . . a gift?
Why do we (why do you, why do I) wait for the worst?
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Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash
My book, A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.
That last line... Why indeed do we wait... Serious illnesses can have extraordinary consequences...whilst I've not heard your reaction, I've seen the husband of a terminally ill wife, find purpose and feeling valued for the first time by fundraising.