Showing Love to Our Fear
August 2nd, 2012
This past week, my oldest started a new school. At the new student orientation, after the introductions and the parents-only spiel, the students had gone off to meet their teachers and see their classrooms.
I retreated to the gymnasium, hoping to get a little bit of work done while I waited for my daughter to finish her tour.
A few minutes later, one of the dads joined me. “Good idea,” he said. “Not exactly enough time to go back to the office.”
We got to chatting. He had a son. He was raising him on his own “because my wife passed away.”
A pause. Then: “May I ask how?”
“She died of breast cancer when my son was 7.”
He told a painful but all too familiar story. They caught it early. She went through all the treatment, chemo, surgery, radiation, the works. And a few months after treatment was over, she had a metastatic recurrence.
When I meet a breast cancer widower or orphan, I feel compelled to open my heart to hear their story. I feel a need to make myself emotionally available. Most people cannot imagine what they have experienced. I have gone closer than most. I feel I owe it to the woman who died.
Because the truth is, I hope that others would do the same for my husband and children if I ended up leaving them behind.
It was a moving conversation, full of connection and empathy without being uncomfortably personal. I think we both were touched, he feeling understood and me feeling the gratitude of being in the place that I am.
That night, however, was a different story. At 3 AM, I woke in a sweat. I had dreamed I was being chased down with some monster mutation of vicious tractor. The driver was trying to kill me.
It was only after I woke that I realized that the gentle, kind father’s face was on the demon of my dream.
***
How do we do this? How do we reap the fruits of compassion that our experience gives us while looking at our worst fears straight in the face?
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2012 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Survivorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Lani,
What a compelling and riveting account of your meeting with this man. I wish I had an answer to your question. I don’t.
((((((HUGS))))))
xox
AnneMarie
thanks, AM. thanks for the hugs too. xo
Wow. I worry about that every single time I talk to someone touched by cancer because I represent everyone’s worst fear…the aftermath…just like the “kind father”. I am sure he so appreciated talking to you, as do I….talking to someone who gets it. But it is not a good feeling on this end either. Its a tough one…I feel like we have to hang on to each other or no one gets through. Thank you so much for being willing to open yourself. Much love Lani.
Nancy
love to you, nancy.
Lani,
I agree with Nancy. We get through this by hanging onto one another. What else can we do really? We get through it by being there for someone else in need and as you mentioned, we hope someone is there for us when and if we or our loved ones need support. Being willing to take on someone else’s pain, even a little of it, is not without risk as you found out with your disturbing dream. But closing your heart, well then no one gets through.
maybe that’s it, nancy. we each help carry a little bit of somebody’s burden, even if for only a moment. maybe that’s how we heal each other.
I, SO, know what you mean about showing the fear our love. I do it every day in my work as part of a palliative care team in a hospital. The breast cancer patients are always the hardest for me, of course. But I do keep my heart open and sometimes the experience offers a bit of continued healing for me.
I am a longtime BC survivor. I volunteer at a hospital’s oncology clinic where cancer patients get chemo. I have been told by the person who is my supervisor (who works for a cancer group) not to share my story because it will give patients false hope and they will go to their MDs and say, “Why can’t I be like her.” Is that your impression, too?
i have never worked in a formal support setting. i use my blog and social media. i don’t know how i could handle somebody telling me how to share my story. i have heard from women with mets that they are often excluded from support groups so they don’t “scare” other women. this is the first time i have heard of a long time survivor being silenced.
we are pretty scared to share.
i can imagine. palliative care is so important, and so underutilized. thank you for what you do.
What a great post and I can totally relate! Even reading about someone dying of breast cancer makes me cry and afraid, but I feel like I should show compassion for those left behind.
That’s why I do what I do with Melanoma Prayer Center. I’m stage 3b melanoma, but I love you, ChemoBabe, for just this reason. Every time I walk with someone I’m doing it for them, but also, truthfully, I’m doing it for me too because it makes me confront my worse fears. And only the voice of experience can really understand and give the compassion that is needed. We understand when we need to indulge a pity party for someone and we know when we need to tell someone to get a grip because “now” isn’t the time for that. Maybe later but not now. Our experience is invaluable. And when we share of ourselves and remind ourselves of our own fears, we reap fruit. I know, for me, this is one way I diminish the melanoma that seeks to diminish me. Blessings.
I love that you see this as a way of keeping the melanoma from diminishing you. I think you are right. Cancer requires us to struggle for our humanity. When we share our experiences, we have a chance to affirm the humanity of others. And isn’t that the most humanizing act of all? Love to you too.
What do you do?
You stay present, you listen to your fear, and you remember that every person is different. You try it until you feel peace without the need for distance.
I’m working on it, too!
X
This means so much to me, Supa Dupa. Thank you for the comment. X
The way we do it is exactly the way you said it: by showing love to fear. Thank you for sharing this lovely post.
Thanks for sharing it, Jackie.
It’s so hard to process these things. My dreams often don’t make sense, but I try to piece them together to see what my real issues are. I met a man a few months ago who lost his wife to breast cancer in Feb. 2012. I really didn’t know what to say, other than “I’m sorry.” He had approached me after I had given a talk on lymphedema and said how much he appreciated what I was doing for the community-at-large. That made me feel good, but it didn’t begin to reach the pain I felt for him at his loss. Keep on keeping on. xxx
Yes. I really believe in the importance of sharing our stories. We sometimes don’t fully anticipate the emotional impact.
How do we do it? I hardly know myself, except that we do. It sounds like you had a great exchange with that father, and yet so many emotions swirl . . . How to balance between the fear and the compassion is an act that takes continuing variation, I think. Adjust as necessary. Retreat when required. Return when ready.
Yes. It’s not a one-size fits all thing. We have to keep adjusting. Constantly…
Fear is so intense after these types of life experiences. We never know quite know what discussion, checkup, dream, blog post, or article is going to stir it to life. I am still learning to battle the fear myself, some days fear wins, other days I win.
What a wonderful encounter with the father whose wife died of breast cancer watching over his son. I also really related to your dream and the fear. I had a similar experience and also had what I though was a horrible dream. Having had breast cancer and lost my fearless friend to MBC I really appreciate the way you talked about this man’s experience.
I also agree with Nancy that we get through this by hanging on to one another. Thanks for sharing this great post.-Susan
Thanks, Susan. It is hard when we have lost people we love too. It makes these stories much more vivid, even beyond our own cancer experience.
A wonderful post that makes us realize that we all face our worst fears through a big dose of compassion for others. Having had breast cancer, we will never be the same again. But we can lend each other a hand, a gentle hug, kind words, and meaningful writing. Thanks for this reminder of our humanity in a world that we can’t fully understand.
Thank you, Jan. I still feel like I am finding my sea legs here. Maybe I won’t get used to hearing these stories, but I hopefully will get used to facing them.
Wonderful post and very poignant. Wayne Dyer said in his book “Pulling Your Own Strings” that fear doesn’t really exist. In other words, we give fear that power. This is true; it is so difficult to overcome it, isn’t it. I’ve been so fearful lately, and fear doesn’t loosen its grasp. Yet, living in the present, savoring life, has to combat that fear somewhat.
Thanks for sharing this encounter with this man. I remember a couple weeks back I met with someone just like this and we started talking about our battles.
Primal scream, anyone? Come on. I see you under the table. It will be fun.