If I should ever get a difficult and potentially life-threatening disease I will have a difficult and potentially life-threatening disease. I will have a disease / an illness that requires medical help. It will be a disease, an illness, not a battle or a fight that is mine to win or lose. I will try to find the best treatment available, I will look at as many options as possible, but I will not try to “beat this”. I do not live my life as a battle, in order to win. I try to live as gracefully and honestly as possible.
If I should die from this illness, I will die. I will not succumb, nor will I have lost the fight or the battle. I will especially not have lost a “courageous battle” – what’s the alternative: a “cowardly battle”?
People in this country are so embarrassingly quick to make predictions about the outcome of ball games, diseases, etc. “I just KNOW we will win this time!” Then, when we don’t win: “Oh, well, guess I was wrong. But I just KNOW that NEXT time we will win!” Don’t people listen to themselves? Don’t they realize how dumb they sound when they “know!” something that’ll happen in the future?
If you even so much as think of telling me, “You can beat this!” – in order to “support” me – better think again. First of all, how do you know? You had a private audience with God who personally told you that I will not die? Yes? You have a crystal ball? Secondly, I’m not in this to beat anything or anyone. To me, if a difficult and life-threatening disease should happen to be part of my life, it is a disease, an illness, not a battle. If you want to support me, bring me good food and seasonal flowers. Help me take care of the things I can’t take care of. Listen and hold my hand, but please don’t “encourage” me to “fight!” because you think I must win this battle. If you want to pray for me, pray for strength and grace and honesty, not to “beat this!” If your outlook on life is one of winning and losing and you cannot stand the thought of not fighting, please realize that there is no place for you in my life.
Xeni Jardin:
Cancer is a biological process of cells refusing to do what they should inside our bodies, not a “fight” that weaker souls among us “lose.”
(tweet from April 22, 2013)