The C-Word

The dreaded C word. Cancer. My family like most families has been effected by this gruesome disease. I remember the moment my Mom told me that my Dad (Gordie) had cancer. Keene and I had just moved to Illinois and I was miserable. I was trying to figure out how to live somewhere that was so completly opposite of my comfort zone and we were newly married. It was a tough time. When I heard those words," he has cancer". I was so emotional. It was 1996 and the type and stage of cancer he had was life ending.

I remember driving home from Illinois in the middle of winter, watching half of America out my window and wondering how this was going to change not only me but the family. Little did I know that the dreaded C word made us better. We learned what strength really was. We learned that you can beat cancer. In fact you can keep beating it. I have seen it twice. I have also been witness to its destruction.

My biological Dad (Pat) died at the age of 51. I was 30. We were not close. His death rocked me to the core of my soul.  Patti, my sister,told me the news on that April day. I heard the words and went into this fog. I saw and heard everything but I was outside of myself. It was as if I was a witness not a participant in myself. The feeling of emptiness in my stomach and the swirling of thoughts and memories in my head was like a roller coaster ride I could not get off. Just when I thought the ride was over back up the summit I went.

Eventually the twists and turns were easier to deal with and the ride came to a stop. Patti and I have talked hours upon hours about losing a parent who was not really present in your upbringing or your life. The raw emotions that come out of you that you thought were buried or non-existent are startling. The reality of saying good-bye again. It was as though he was always leaving us. This time though the cancer took him.We would never get any answers to the Why. It took awhile but she and I figured it was OK to never get the answers maybe he did not know them either.

And now the C word is poking its head into my sister's life. After having two parent's have cancer I naively thought that entitled us to a free pass from any other run ins with the nasty invader. Then she called and said I have to go in for a throat biopsy.

Again I heard her but I felt myself slip out of myself ever so slightly. She needs me to talk about it. I have not figured out a way to do that yet. There were no cancer cells. But that is not an all clear. Every six months she is going to have her throat stretched and biopsied. The disease has a name. I Googled it. It is not a death sentence, but it is in her life, inside of her. It is in my life. Again. It always will be.

No matter how hard Dad fights or Patti fights or how many family members we have lost, it is not going away. I can't run away from it. I can't bury it like before. I get to face it. I get to take these rides on the cancer roller coaster. We have been through the ups and downs and loopty loops before and we will do it again. I will give her my strength.  We will trust that our faith in family, and God will guide us on this journey just as it has in the past. And if I get lost or start to wander into that fog outside of myself I know she is there. Waiting for me to look in her steel blue eyes and let the words and emotions flow. Face that darn disease together again.