As a professional writer, I have long considered myself a storyteller. Few things excite me more than using my skills to tell stories about everything from the importance of monitoring radioactivity in the boars of Fukishima to the way my company’s culture has been impacted mostly for the better by the pandemic.
I tell stories in my cancer advocacy life too, but those stories I know all too well because they are usually about me. When I spend time talking to the media or raising awareness about colorectal cancer at community events, as I did last week, I get the opportunity to hear stories of other people who faced cancer.
Being a story keeper is a sacred responsibility. The people who stopped to tell me their stories trusted me, some guy they don’t know but who is in the right place at the right time — sitting behind a table at The Man Show, or across the table at a radio station.
There’s the gentleman whose brother is an esophageal cancer survivor who had his esophagus removed and his stomach pulled up to fill in the gap.
Several guys told me about loved ones who faced colorectal cancer. One man broke down in tears as he shared about how the disease that took his wife. It’s often heartbreaking to hear these stories. Not everyone comes out alive, after all. But I’m grateful God put me in a place where I could provide a small measure of comfort.
I’m part of a group called Man Up to Cancer, a community of more than 1,500 guys from around the world who are in various stages of treatment, or are survivors or caregivers. When a man from the Wolf Pack passes away, we talk about carrying their banner forward.
It’s an image see clearly in my mind’s eye: men on horseback lined up across the horizon carrying banners emblazoned with the names of the fallen, moving ever forward to advance on the evil disease we’ve all been called to fight. Their stories still have an impact because we remember them, we fight in their stead.
So it is with the stories I’ve been told in hushed tones as if I’m the only one who should hear them. A loved one faced cancer and someone took the time to tell me the story. It’s an act of love and of bravery that happens over and over again.
I may never know their names, but I carry their stories with me.
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