talking cancer Having
cancer, I
By Deanna A. Thompson
n one cancer memoir I read, the author is in the exam room after she learns she has breast cancer. She looks at the doctor through her tears and whispers, “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how to have cancer.” The doctor puts his hand on her shoulder and says, “None of us knows how to have cancer.” It’s a humble and humbling claim, one I seek comfort in, both in terms of my own bewilderment over how to cope with cancer in my own life and in the lives of others, as well as the challenge of how to deal with those who mean well but offer little comfort at all. How, then, do you have cancer? And how do you talk about it? On good days when someone makes a comment I disagree with or says something insensitive or just plain wrong, I remind myself that none of us knows how to have cancer.
On good days I realize a person who makes an inappropriate comment overcame the temptation to say nothing at all, which (theoretically) I appreci- ate. Rather than ignoring my cancer, this person—however awkwardly—is acknowledging cancer’s invasion into my life. The problem is not all days are good days.
This article is excerpted and reprinted with permis- sion from Hoping for More: Having Cancer, Talking Faith, and Accepting Grace (Cascade Books, 2012). Thompson is a professor of religion at Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn., and a member of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, St. Paul. Her website is www.
hopingformore.com.
In fact, many days with cancer are bad days. On those days I’m not so mag- nanimous in my response. Rather than greeting awkward attempts at consolation with gravitas, I get offended, angry, hurt.
On bad days my retorts to off- the-mark comments often offend in return. Close friends and family tell
32 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org Deanna A. Thompson
me I have no reason to feel badly about my sharp replies. That it’s not my job to take care of others and their misguided assumptions. But it’s not that easy: none of us knows how to have cancer. How, then, do I have cancer? And how do I talk about it?
Thankfully I have not been told very often that God gave me cancer. Maybe it’s because I belong to a branch of American Protestantism that resists viewing God as the direct cause of all that happens in the world. Or maybe it’s because it’s intimidat- ing to tell a religion professor how God is at work in her life. Whatever the reason, I’m grate- ful for the infrequency with which I have received comments that rest on assumptions I reject.
Still there have been a few. Several months after the diagnosis I ran into a friend I had not seen in awhile. After giving me a big hug, she stepped back and declared, “Isn’t it amazing the lengths God will go to fix our gaze on him?”
This was a good day for me, but a bad day for an extended theologi- cal discussion about God’s role in human suffering. I ran into the friend at a grocery store just as my daughters and I were heading for the car. “Mmmmm hmmmm!” and a half-smile was all I could muster in response to her view of God as bringer-of-all-disaster.
What I wanted to say is that I seri- ously doubt God gave me cancer. That my friend, herself in the midst of a painful separation from her husband, would use the word our, however, gave me pause. She wasn’t simply saying God gave me cancer; it seemed she believed that God had brought on the trials of her separation as well. Even though I reject this view of God, I can imagine why my friend embraces it. We want there to be a reason for the pain.
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