Let me preface my reaction to
Richard Smith’s recent article, “Dying of cancer is the best death” (http://ow.ly/GG6QE) by stating that my dream is
to live to his ripe age of 62 so that I too can have the opportunity to be
controversial in the world of social media after I retire. Maybe I’ll decide
one day to be plucky, and see what reactions I can get, just for fun. Perhaps
after a longer lifetime, I’ll decide to write an article chock-full of
incendiary remarks on a topic rife with human emotion. And if I do, perhaps
I’ll be brazen enough to use it as a precursor for why the entire medical
industry is just plain wrong. All in my humble opinion of course. But the key point here is the still being alive part. As for the rest of it? I
doubt it.
What could he possibly be thinking? I wracked my brain for hours trying to understand what the author intended here. I didn't come up with anything good. What I do think is that the author
was trying to be provocative, and if that's all he was trying to accomplish, I commend him for his efforts. Truly, bravo
for venturing into the topic of death with nary a concern for people whose
experiences with cancer might not easily be washed away by a sip of whisky.
I have known many people who
slipped peacefully away in hospice. They too left their cancer-riddled bodies
with all their final arrangements in order. But they are by far the minority
with respect to cancer deaths that I have come to
know.
My guess is that anyone who has sat
by the bedside of someone moaning through breakthrough morphine that isn’t
dulling the pain from bone metastases, might desire a different option for
letting go of their mortal coil. As someone who is facing the possibility of
having my body melt away in front of my children from a hemorrhagic cancer, I
too have a strong desire to NOT DIE FROM CANCER.
I have made my video’s, written my
letters, read my poetry and taken my road trips. I have said goodbye more times
than I’ve said hello. And yet after reading this article, I wish that Richard
Smith could relate more to the “pair of ragged claws scuttling across the
floors of silent seas” that T.S. Elliot felt kinship with, than to the quirky
death whisperer that he clearly aspires to be.
But than again, what do I know. I
haven’t died yet. And all that waiting in line
to chat with Lazarus is too time consuming. I think I’ll take my chances and drive a little
too fast, maybe forget my seatbelt from time to time. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll
get lucky and live past this awful diagnosis so that I too can have the opportunity
to die from something else.
Disclosure: I have angiosarcoma. No
one would choose this path out of life.
