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Breast Cancer Advocacy, Breast Cancer Treatment, cancer, Cancer Language, Damian Gorman, John McCain, Memoir
P.S. Moxie is No Match for Cancer
I don’t know John McCain. I don’t know if he cried when he learned of his cancer diagnosis. I don’t know how he feels about expectations of him to beat it because, after all, he has proven – in the context of war – that he is a fighter: “Senator John McCain has always been a fighter. Melania and I send our thoughts and prayers to Senator McCain, Cindy, and their entire family. Get well soon,” says Donald Trump. From Barack Obama, “John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I’ve ever known. Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against. Give it hell, John.” McCain’s demonstrated toughness,…
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Art, Awesome Women, Blogging, Breast Cancer Treatment, Chemotherapy, Family, Fathers and sons, Friendships, Happy Father's Day, Loss, Love, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Social Media, Writing
a promise kept for father’s day
On June 15th, 2013, I wrote the following as a promise to Karen Sutherland. I am profoundly saddened to learn of her passing exactly four years later. Karen was witty and wise and much loved by her ‘sisters’ in the online breast cancer community. She always offered a soft place to fall and an encouraging word even as she dealt with the ravages of cancer and loss in her own life. It was my honor to know you, Karen, for you made the world a much better place. My deepest condolences to your family. I remember you once shared with me a lovely story about your Hugh, and I promised I…
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At Sea on Father’s Day – Grief Reconsidered.
Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. ~John Updike This is not a truism we consider daily. Typically, it is reserved for the day we are handed bad tidings – the cancer diagnosis that forces us to stare down our own mortality, or when the dreaded or unexpected news arrives that someone we love is dead or dying. From that day on, everything is different; we are different, mourning for what was lost, for who we were the day before, and for what we can no longer have. There was and is no easy remedy, no standard step-by-step process for any of us. There is no beaten path to…
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The Man I Love Has Cancer.
The man I love has cancer. And, after months of deliberation, of decisions made and decisions overturned, he has begun treatment. Radiation treatment. Every single day. For forty more days. With my own cancer treatment in the rear-view mirror, I thought I would just know how to help him, how and when to find the best and kindest words to lift him up, to quell the fear, to be “there” for him. Then I remind myself that the treatment of cancer is a private act with stretches of time spent in a surreal and solitary confinement. Along the way, I know I can point out some of the landmarks – detection,…
