I do not wish to offend.
This has been bugging me for a long time. The idea that someone “lost” their battle with cancer. In this case it’s not someone…it’s Laura. She didn’t lose…and I resent it when someone says that to me. I understand where that comes from because people don’t mean it in any other way than, “It totally sucks that she went through what she went through and didn’t live.”
Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying (some of you still will). You mean it in the most caring way and I know that and I’m not ungrateful. I’m just saying that she didn’t lose…she died. We all die one way or another. Some of us happen to die from cancer. We don’t lose our lives…our time in this world ends. It’s as simple as that.
I read magazine articles and blog posts…watch and attend fund raisers…donate money to “the cause” and all that…and everywhere and all the time there are survivors in heroic poses with powerful headlines like, “I beat cancer.” Or, “I WILL win this fight,” or “I kicked cancer’s butt!” There is an unwritten footnote behind all of these…and that is that these people have more of what it takes to suffer through the treatments and survive. There is pride there and deservedly so. But where does that leave the Laura’s of the world?
I’ve been struggling with this anger for months…maybe even years. I’ve been trying to find an example of what I think of people who fight…and work…and pray…and get sick…and lose their hair…body parts and dignity but end up dying anyway. I want it for me and anyone else who is left standing in awe at what they’ve witnessed first hand. I am proud of Laura and what she accomplished through it all. She is more of a man than I’ll ever be.
The Iron Man
I was brushing my teeth this morning and I found my example. I know how I am going to position the Laura’s in my head…and it comes from something I saw years and years ago on television. Cue memory bank:
I was in my teens…watching the 1982 Iron Man competition on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. There was a young woman named Julie Moss who literally crawled across the finish line…her body wasted by the physical assault she endured in the race. She was the heroic story that eclipsed the winner and the camera’s followed her as she finally reached the end. She didn’t win…but she sure as hell didn’t lose either.
Now…so many years later…that moving finish is how I choose to see all the men and women who “lost” their fight to cancer. Keep that in mind as you watch this.
There is no win or lose when it comes to being alive. You don’t “lose” a life…you’re life in this form comes to an end. That’s not a glum statement either…it’s just fact. How we live our life and approach the finish line is a measure of how grateful we are to be in the race at all. Sooner or later we’re all going to cross that finish line. I intend to run/walk/crawl until I do…because even though I’ve stumbled and fallen from time-to-time I’m damn glad to still be in the race.
[My sympathies to anyone who "lost" a loved one to cancer, or heart failure, or any of the countless ways it happens. That's not the kind of lose I'm referring to here.]
