Shelly my cousin died of breast cancer in November of 2005. She was 48 and absolutely beautiful. She was my favorite cousin, my best friend. We would call each other on weekend mornings and talk for hours. We were both single parents and had a lot in common which included struggling from one point to the next. I remember the day she told me she had cancer. She blew it off like it was no big deal. She portrayed herself as being strong and could fight anything even cancer regardless of how bad it was or what stage she was in. What’s really funny is that I find myself doing the same thing, I think I can fight anything regardless of how bad it is, it’s our mindset. We’ve had so many trials and struggled with so much in life, one more ‘thing’ is no big deal. By the way, when she was diagnosed she was at stage four with the cancer.
She was fighter but this time she didn’t win the fight. She left behind 3 kids, a husband, friends and family that will miss her dearly. But more than that she left behind our Saturday morning conversations, our ability to discuss anything from falling in love to what we should expect after death and why. How we should and should not react if she didn’t win this fight. Because even she realized that not everyone wins every fight. We discussed in length how to act around people we knew didn’t really care for us (because we were single parents), and how to hold our heads high even though being single in our family is like having leprosy. Family members tolerate us, but truth be told, they would prefer not to. In our family, if you’re not married your self worth (to most family members anyway) is non existent. We were each others source of support; we had a common interest, a common struggle and Mothers that were sisters.
Shelly was not afraid death and neither am I. We had discussed the death process in length and why we should not be afraid of it, what to do and how to accept it in a positive way. I spoke with her two days before she left this earth. She’s been gone almost 2 years now and it feels like she left only yesterday. She really did put up a hard fight and lost.
I don’t understand this cancer thing. I want to know what she did differently from what I’m doing. Or is it that my time just hasn’t arrived yet and my cancer experience is just around the corner. I want to know if I will suffer the same way she did, will I have the same type of cancer, and do I have the same genes that allowed her to develop this cancer? Was it the air she breathed or the water she drank? Does this cancer thing have something to do with broken hearts? I mean after your heart has broken so many times do the breaks and the cracks turn into cancer? If that’s possible then her cancer is understandable. And when my time comes will I be as strong as Shelly was putting up a heck of fight til the bitter end? I would love to know the answers to these questions not only for my sake but for the sake of other relatives and friends, before it’s their turn to “fight this thing called cancer”.
