When I heard the words “you have cancer,” I quickly came to understand the limits of my mortality.
I actually have an expiration date.
Time became a precious commodity. I wanted, and still want, whatever time I have left to be spent in meaningful ways.
But there’s a tension, right?
I’m more than 11 years removed from my diagnosis. The crisis of imminent death has passed. I’m well past the five-year mark when risk of recurrence was 95 percent.
Life has, for the most part, returned to “normal,” whatever in hell that is. Much as I’d like, not every moment is packed with meaning. More than I’d like are pretty humdrum. Some days I’m just glad I woke up, got through, and fell into bed.
My weekend at the Man Up to Cancer Gathering of Wolves was a wake up call.
Fireside gatherings are an important part of the GOW experience. First night is the intro or welcome fire, where everyone gets to introduce themselves and tell their cancer story.
Second night is the Fire of Remembrance, where we read the names and share memories of the MUTC members who passed away during the previous year. We read and remembered the lives of 78 men this year, four of whom were supposed to be at the event.
Third night is the “Fuck It” Fire, where we wrote down on paper, shared aloud, and then burned the things we want to leave behind: survivor’s guilt, shame, anger, all of the things that gnaw at our hearts and keep us from fully experiencing the life we have left.
It’s that second fire, the one of remembrance, that has stuck with me this week, but maybe not for the reason one might think.
I’m not afraid of death. I am fully aware there is an end date for my life. I don’t know when it is, but God does. As a man of faith, I don’t doubt where I’m going.
Most of the time.
Yes, occasionally I have doubts. After all, only one person has come back to tell the tale and his words have been so often hijacked and reinterpreted for political purposes and, dare I say, personal economic gain, that it’s difficult to know what’s real.
Doubt makes me human. And before my friends who are certain that they’re certain show up to read me the riot act, I’m going to bet in the dark of night when you can’t sleep maybe you have a little bit of doubt, too.
We’re human.
I know I don’t get to choose the how but drowning is the death I want least. Just in case The Big Guy is reading this.
Also, if you’re reading this and you send a floral spray to the funeral home or church with a plastic phone tucked into the petals with a banner that reads, “Jesus called,” I will haunt you.
But, I digress.
Back to the fire…
I know the day will come when someone reads my name and, hopefully, tells some damned good stories about me. While sipping bourbon, perhaps.
What broke through and shattered my heart was the thought of reading the names of the guys surrounding me Saturday night.
“What am I gonna do if it’s your name?” I asked my buddy, Ryan. Not that I want to hasten anything along for him or anyone else. The realization hit me that he or any one of the other 110 men at GOW could be on the list next year.
Men I now know. Whom I love like brothers. And whom I’d rather not live without.
What am I gonna do if it’s your name?
That’s entirely the risk, and the entire point of having the life we’ve been given, right? In any relationship, for sure, and in this case for those of us in the crucible of cancer.
Death and grief are part of it.
It’s the precarity paradox. Life can be and often is both joyful and painful at the same time. A child is born in the same season during which a grandparent dies, for example. Or a musician in the deep throes of cancer treatment performs on stage with her musical hero.
Life is a both/and situation.
There is no choosing one or the other.
At another point in my life that realization that someone I love might be on the Fire of Remembrance list might have caused me to pull away.
Can’t get too close because he/they might die.
Let’s be real, all of us who have faced cancer, another horrible illness, or any of life’s major traumas have experience with people disappearing from the scene.
The friends who watched our dog on the days I was in the chemotherapy chair all day stopped coming for her about halfway through my treatment regimen. No explanation. Just stopped. Other friends disappeared at different times too.
Skimming too closely to the valley of the shadow of death is a lot for some people to deal with. For those who left, maybe my experience resurrected hidden traumas or brought back memories they didn’t want to face.
I want to understand and my arms are always open to welcoming them back.
In the meantime, I keep in mind the beautiful words of C.S. Lewis:
“Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”
The happiness — no, the joy — now, is in loving my brothers. Now. Where they are. Their joys — expecting grandchildren, kids graduating, going on vacation, hearing or reading the words “No Evidence of Disease,” — those joys are my joys too. So too is their pain and sorrow also mine — disease no longer in remission, chemotherapy session number whatever, loss of a loved one, end of a relationship.
Lest you think I’ve gone all toxically positive and that suddenly I have sunshine radiating out of my rear end (I don’t and that thing is sewn shut anyway), let me temper the above by saying that most of the time and for most of us it’s completely acceptable to have the best day possible. The best life possible.
My friend Kate Bowler puts it this way: “Life is so beautiful. Life is hard.”
The precarity paradox.
It is so fucking hard here sometimes.
And so amazingly beautiful.
Both/and.
The Fire of Remembrance was both/and.
We cried while we laughed. Grief and smiles. Hugs and tears. Despair and support.
If ever you’re looking for me I’ll be over here, loving my brothers and the other people in my life including you, dear reader.
After all, to quote Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.”
Thanks be to God.
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