I wanted to write a love story today. Something that would make everyone smile for the new work week ahead. But I woke up this morning in sweats, after having spent the night having nightmarish dreams about having a tumor. The one word that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to puke whenever I hear it. My second most hated word in any language, after cancer.
I remember the first time I heard it. I was nine years old and I heard the adults talking about it. I remember asking "can anyone catch it?" and they said yes, anyone could catch it and no one knew what it was from. I was scared shitless. So scared, in fact, that the word cancer stayed buried back in my mind for the next few years. Little did I know that this word would come to define the first quarter of my life. When I was 13, I wrote a book called "I Believe in Angels." It was about a sixteen year-old boy, dying from Cancer. It may seem odd for a 13-year-old girl to write a story with such drama --which at the time, I knew nothing about. I could only imagine what it was like for the boy to find out he was dying, for his friend to deal with the news while still being there to make him smile, and for his family to accept this tragedy. It was all made up in my mind, all my imagination.
I had no idea that three years later I would come to experience this word so close it would feel like a gun to my temple. When my mother got sick, at first, no one mentioned the scariest-word-in-the-world. It was "a mass" that she had to remove from her brain, and a "treatment" that would make her loose her hair. And then one day, I sat across from a therapist who asked me questions about my mother's illness, until she made me say the word. Worst moment of my life.
From then on, it was like living with a ticking-clock inside my stomach. I was afraid to find myself alone with my father because I was worried of what bad news he could tell me. I was too scared to look anyone in the eyes, because I didn't want to see the worry on their face. I was terrified of speaking to my mother, because I was too scared I would break-down and burst-out crying, when everyone specifically said no crying and no negative energy around her. It was exhausting.
When she died, we thought we buried Cancer with her. Never wanted to hear that word again. Ever. But then two years later we buried my grandmother with the same word. And I thought that must be it. And then, some odd years later, I fell in love and was happy and the word came back in my life. Again.
When my boyfriend looked at me and told me he had a tumor in his chest, with tears in his eyes, I became a rock. I couldn't even blink. I held my breath, afraid of what would happen if I lost control. This time, I wasn't going to burry anyone but that fucking word.
I was older now and it was different. No one was trying to protect me from the realities anymore, I had to protect him. I came to realize, very quickly, that this wasn't happening to me again, but rather, this was happening to him. And so he fought, and I fought with him, and I was happy that for once, Cancer was the one getting its butt kicked. And he did it. And last year like now, like this very week, we buried Cancer, on its own, hopefully for good. It wore us out, changed us forever, made us take different paths then we expected. But this morning when I woke up, all I could see was his face, that first day in the hospital, when they were wheeling him down to the biopsy. And all I could see was my mother, who put on a brave face, smiling at her three children, pretending that word hadn't just shook her whole world around. And all I could see was my grandmother, once the symbol of beauty and elegance, weak and ravaged by this savage disease.
But people fight this everyday, I've seen it. And I just wanted to write a tribute, to those who fought, those who lost, and those who will join the fight.
I remember the first time I heard it. I was nine years old and I heard the adults talking about it. I remember asking "can anyone catch it?" and they said yes, anyone could catch it and no one knew what it was from. I was scared shitless. So scared, in fact, that the word cancer stayed buried back in my mind for the next few years. Little did I know that this word would come to define the first quarter of my life. When I was 13, I wrote a book called "I Believe in Angels." It was about a sixteen year-old boy, dying from Cancer. It may seem odd for a 13-year-old girl to write a story with such drama --which at the time, I knew nothing about. I could only imagine what it was like for the boy to find out he was dying, for his friend to deal with the news while still being there to make him smile, and for his family to accept this tragedy. It was all made up in my mind, all my imagination.
I had no idea that three years later I would come to experience this word so close it would feel like a gun to my temple. When my mother got sick, at first, no one mentioned the scariest-word-in-the-world. It was "a mass" that she had to remove from her brain, and a "treatment" that would make her loose her hair. And then one day, I sat across from a therapist who asked me questions about my mother's illness, until she made me say the word. Worst moment of my life.
From then on, it was like living with a ticking-clock inside my stomach. I was afraid to find myself alone with my father because I was worried of what bad news he could tell me. I was too scared to look anyone in the eyes, because I didn't want to see the worry on their face. I was terrified of speaking to my mother, because I was too scared I would break-down and burst-out crying, when everyone specifically said no crying and no negative energy around her. It was exhausting.
When she died, we thought we buried Cancer with her. Never wanted to hear that word again. Ever. But then two years later we buried my grandmother with the same word. And I thought that must be it. And then, some odd years later, I fell in love and was happy and the word came back in my life. Again.
When my boyfriend looked at me and told me he had a tumor in his chest, with tears in his eyes, I became a rock. I couldn't even blink. I held my breath, afraid of what would happen if I lost control. This time, I wasn't going to burry anyone but that fucking word.
I was older now and it was different. No one was trying to protect me from the realities anymore, I had to protect him. I came to realize, very quickly, that this wasn't happening to me again, but rather, this was happening to him. And so he fought, and I fought with him, and I was happy that for once, Cancer was the one getting its butt kicked. And he did it. And last year like now, like this very week, we buried Cancer, on its own, hopefully for good. It wore us out, changed us forever, made us take different paths then we expected. But this morning when I woke up, all I could see was his face, that first day in the hospital, when they were wheeling him down to the biopsy. And all I could see was my mother, who put on a brave face, smiling at her three children, pretending that word hadn't just shook her whole world around. And all I could see was my grandmother, once the symbol of beauty and elegance, weak and ravaged by this savage disease.
But people fight this everyday, I've seen it. And I just wanted to write a tribute, to those who fought, those who lost, and those who will join the fight.
