What Do You Say?

I got this submission yesterday from a good friend. It makes me ache.  She asks the complicated question: how can we best love and support someone at the end stage of cancer treatment? It is a question without one clean, clear answer; a question of individual experience, of stage of life, of personality and faith. She's suspended somewhere in between reality and grief, between respect and support.  It's during these hardest time, these inexplicable experiences, where we have to see the illusion of shared experience. Somethings we cannot fully share or understand, somethings we must just witness. How we witness, how we honor and support is what makes all the difference.  - BTH

She didn't think I'd understand - she was apprehensive to stop chemo, but she was apprehensive to continue. Trust me, I understood. In this situation, there is no answer.  There are decisions to be made, but no answer to be had.  If only there was the slightest possibility of peering through that crystal ball to see if one path or the other might lead to a slightly better outcome - a few more weeks, a better quality of life. But there is no crystal ball, and in the absence of the ability to see into the future, she has to make a decision.  Today, to me, that is the definition of courage - of making a decision when there is no answer, and no information at hand to help guide you. I suppose this is where in my life, I would turn to God and my faith, and pray for guidance to follow the right path; that there is, in fact, a path meant to be.  I've never heard her speak of her faith, and I am not one to proselytize, and so the best thing I could do was offer to listen as I drove her to her chemo appointment, and to hope to offer the right words of encouragement to her, because honestly what the heck do you say in these situations? 

I don't know what those right words are, but I think I would want to someone to tell me that I've done an amazing job, that I've fought a heroic battle, that I had found strength to carry on when others couldn't have, that I wasn't letting anyone down, and in fact, that I was inspiring. I think that's what I would want to hear...but I hope to never have to find out. So that's what I told her today, because every word of it is true, and because I could tell that the burden of letting her parents down, that she was appearing to 'give up', was weighing heavily on her shoulders.  She needs to know she is loved, loved dearly, and that she is capable of making the right decision for her and her family.  She asked me if I knew what I would do in her shoes. I told her I did know, or that I think I know what I would do. She didn't ask for my answer, and I didn't offer it - because I think she hears plenty of opinions, and because I think she knew what she wanted to do.  I know that if I had given the battle everything I could, that I would choose quality of life over quantity of life.  The clinical trial she is on right now causes vision loss, and causes her to generally feel as bad as one can imagine.  I would want to see my kids.  I would want my kids to know that I gave my absolute best, but in the end, I would choose to spend my days with as much strength as I could, to enjoy them for every quality moment I had left.

I heard from my friend tonight, a few hours after I left her with her husband at the doctor's office, and she told me she had found peace.  I think it was a kind of peace that she hasn't experienced yet.  I will tell you that as hard as I have been praying for a miracle for her, I have equally been praying for her to be at peace, and to have a good quality of life for however long God will grant her on this earth.  I am so heart broken tonight, so deeply sad for her daughter that will grow up without her mother, for her parents who will lose their only child, for her husband who has had to endure an unjust burden in his early years of marriage, for her friends, and for her students.

My friend was my son's 1st grade teacher last year.  I remember overhearing whispers as we went to meet the teacher night in August.  We didn't know anyone, and finally I learned she had been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer just weeks before school started, weeks before her daughter turned 1, weeks before she turned 29. Twenty. Nine.  I hate that the first thought that passed  through my head was that of selfishness.  We had just moved to Seattle, and my son (who takes a good 8 months of the year to adjust to a new situation) would have a first grade situation that would mean his teacher was gone 2 days every other week for chemo. We had just left a preschool situation where his amazing (also young) teacher was fighting cancer.  Was it selfish of me to want a normal classroom experience? In about the same amount of time that the thought flashed in my head, it was gone. I wasn't sure why, but I immediately felt at peace that we were put in this class for a reason. There were 4 first grade classes, and God had placed us in this one. I knew that wasn't just by chance. As it so happens, we met one of (if not THE) best elementary teachers our kids will ever have. My son was challenged to go beyond meeting expectations to create new ones, and push past them. She knew every kid's strengths and abilities, and she taught to them each successfully. I have no idea how she did it. In the process, we became friends outside of school, and I saw my son develop a compassion that I have never seen in him before.  He is not an emotional kid, and does not wear his feelings on his sleeve, but I know that the situation with our friend weighs heavily on him.  I know that I must now also pray for the courage to help him through what lies ahead, and to pray for peace for him as well.