A Drop in the Bucket

I had a long conversation with my friend’s daughter the other night. She was having difficulty understanding why she was forgetful, distracted, and close to tears at any given moment. She’s found out five days before that her mom has cancer. She’s still struggling (duh!) with the news. Somehow she thought that this was something that once you got over the shock of it, you were past it and could move on with your life as it had been before.

I don’t think so.

Larry’s first round with cancer was back in 1990. Nearly 20 years ago. Five years later, the first recurrence i.e. metastasis was found. Two years later another. Two years later another. That was 1999. He’s now at the 10 year point without a recurrence but goes in annually for “the scan” to see if there’s anything to look at.  I figure he thinks of the scans as a way to show that nothing is there. The only other time it crosses his mind is when someone comes to him because they are facing ”it” and he is able to touch their life because of what he’s been through. His cup is half full.

I am the opposite. I wait to see if the cup is half empty. The question always sits back in my mind, usually way back out of sight, until something-an appointment, a friend’s illness, an unexplained ache or pain-brings it back out in the open. Every time that appointment is made, I hold my breath a little, waiting for “the news” – the other shoe to drop. As long as he continues to get scans, as long as the appointments continue, as long as he breathes, even if they pronounce him “cured”, the thought will linger, the question remain, because once cancer enters your life, it forever becomes part of it, adding a new ingredient to the stuff you are made of.

So I listened to this wonderful, young, innocent girl’s concerns and worries about why she alternately felt like she was either stumbling through a molasses-thick fog or spinning out of control then did the best I could to explain the reality of what happens when your life is touched by this crappy disease.  The best illustration I could come up with was this: your life is like a big bucket of crystal clear water. Things come into your life. Some of them are like a marbles dropped into the water-you can see them, they are well defined, there is a beginning and an end. Cancer is more like a drop of dye. It changes the water. It permeates every part of it. Sometimes you can see how the water was changed, sometimes not, because the drop is nearly invisible to the naked eye.  But it is still there, touching every molecule. The water has forever changed. Over time, you might get used to the change hardly noticing. You may even come to see that your life, though different and colored, is actually more beautiful. Better. Because every new drop in your bucket fills your life with more ingredients, more experience, more . . . stuff, giving you more depth, more appreciation, more wisdom, and you are more than you ever could have been without, if you were still plain, and featureless, and empty.

But you can’t see that at the beginning . . . when the waters start to rise . . . when you are hit by the storm . . . when cancer is first dropped into your bucket.