By Nicole Johnson
Every three minutes a woman in this country is diagnosed with breast cancer. Although I have never had it, I have been deeply inspired by courageous women who have. I’ve written this piece for them.
One afternoon after my second to last Chemo treatment, my son walked into my darkened bedroom with his little backpack hanging off one shoulder and simply announced to me, “I came to say goodbye.” I grabbed him so hard and held on for dear life. I whispered into his hair, “Mommy’s not going anywhere honey, I promise.” I could feel the fight for life rising up in me again. Unaffected by all my emotion, he said, “I’m leaving to go to Jason’s now.”
That’s when it dawned on me that the big “D” is far worse than the big “C.” Not death, but Despair. Death can only take you once, but Despair brings death while you are still alive. Despair makes you take everything to its deepest, darkest, often completely wrong conclusion. Lying in the dark unable to sleep, you can almost smell Despair as the weight presses down, and its foul smelling breath whispers things like, “You’re not going to live to see your kids grow up.” “You’ll never see Katy get married.”
In the throes of this kind, or any kind really, of physical pain and sickness, you just want to quit--mind, heart and body. Just let it be over. You want to check out, give in—crawl into a box and wait for death. Personally, I wanted to pull the covers over my head and submit my letter of resignation to Life. I decided I would write it, “To whom it may concern, and to a few it would not concern at all.”
Dear Life—
You cheated. It’s not fair. This was not supposed to happen. I did not sign up for this, and I don’t know who put my name down for cancer while I wasn’t looking. You have taken my life—a life that was finally going quite well—and you have wrecked it.
Yours, not so truly,
Me
Like osteoporosis of the soul, Despair will silently steal the nourishment of your hope, robbing you of your last best reason to brush your teeth in the morning.
Until cancer I never saw my spirit as something I had to protect. But Despair is crafty. It changes faces and tactics, sometimes hourly. Like a lioness, stalking her prey and separating it from the herd, Despair will isolate you from the hope you so desperately need in order to survive. “Why should I fight anymore? I’m going to die anyway.”
Well, today after my encounter with my son, I wrote myself a new press release: I might die, but NOT while I am living.
For the first time in this whole ordeal I felt gratitude. Cancer can be cut out or treated with radiation or chemo, but bitterness, disappointment, disillusionment and ultimately Despair are far harder to treat. Norman Cousins said, “The greatest tragedy of life is not death, but what dies inside us while we live.” And I could feel myself dying inside in my dark bedroom, slowly letting the life that I still had left be sifted by Despair.
No! No, and No. I won’t give up. I’m coming out swinging. I refuse to put a period in my life where God may have only put a comma. I don’t know how long this fight will go on, but I want the privilege of growing old and forgetful. I want to sit through boring graduations with tears running down my cheeks. But I know that those things are not the real victory in this boxing ring, because I could have a lengthy life and not be living at all. The “W” is mine when the powerful right hook of hope knocks out the skulking, dark coward Despair.
When the last bell rings, cancer may stand in the center of the ring alone, but it will not be the winner. In order for cancer to win it would have to be able to follow me beyond the grave, and it can’t. It will be left alone in the ring with only a tired, worn out shell.
Because while I have cancer; cancer does not have me! The disease can take my cells, but it cannot take my self. Cancer can have my hair but it cannot have my heart. And it may be able to claim my breast, but it can NEVER claim my spirit!
© 2002 Nicole Johnson