I had shared all of this fairly publicly because… well because that’s my approach to life. Susan had noted this early that it was wild the way I just put that out there. Initially I was just talking to people with not much more casualness than I went to this concert last night. It wasn’t because I didn’t realize it was heavy, I just wasn’t aware how heavy people took it.
There were two reactions that were very common: “Don’t you ask yourself why me?” and “I would be so angry.” Those were different but they rhymed. There has never been one time since where I asked myself “Why me?” I obviously questioned myself if I had done anything to cause this but current research showed that there were no known components (ie dietary, environmental, genetic, lifestyle etc) that caused this. So I couldn’t have chosen a different location, restaurant or better parents to avoid this, at least as far as we knew. During the course of research, I would eventually talk to an alternative healer who swore she had cured herself of brain cancer (she wouldn’t give me many details) and that the most important thing I needed to figure out was what ‘great stress’ in my life had caused this tumor to grow in me. She added that hers had been caused by the great stress of her divorce and her healing began because of that awareness and her starting acupuncture, certain herbs etc. Now I am a full believer in that stress can create physical problems but I am not of the idea that everything happens for a reason. That doesn’t mean nothing happens for a reason just not that everything does. Anyway, the short version was that other than looking for things that I could control/effect, I never questioned why this had happened to me. Besides, the short version is there wasn’t anyone I knew who I’d rather have gotten this than me. That doesn’t mean that I was grateful I got it but I certainly wouldn’t trade spots with someone else just so that I could avoid it.
The simple truth was that it would have been hypocritical. It’s an odd human trait to me that when life is good, we rarely question it, in fact we often barely notice it but when things are bad we so badly want an explanation. I knew I had a good life (how good was a revelation that was still coming) with a great family, good friends. I had hobbies that I loved and despite growing up in a family where the value of education was not as strong as it could have been due to still being in transition, I had graduated high school at the top of my class and college suma cum laude. Never once, not even a single time during that period, did I question how I’d been so blessed, had such good fortune. So now, something had gone bad. Life has ebbs and flows and I’d been privileged to have some really high rises and well maybe that came with one of these falls. Some people have far worse problems with far less of those privileges.
The anger thing fell on the same lines. Some told me if they were me they would be so angry; others told me that they were so angry that I had it. Personally speaking, I wasn’t mad at anyone; who was there to be mad at? My good Christian friends consistently told me that I shouldn’t worry because God was in control. Again, I don’t doubt that Anyone who runs the universe could cure cancer but the truth is that I’ve never asked. I sometimes pushed the envelope with some of my more adamant friends who were beyond certain that God had to cure me because of His power and dominion. I asked them if God had given me the cancer since he was in control, not one of them could acknowledge that. It wasn’t his fault so I wasn’t angry at him, the universe, or my cell phone company. Proverbs says that the race isn’t always to the swift nor the battle to the strong sometimes chance and luck just happens. Plus, at that point it wasn’t clear which was stronger me or the cancer so I wasn’t sure who I wanted the battle to go anyway.
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