There are some words that should just never be uttered together.
Like Cheese in a Can. Chop-Chop Chicken. Tuna Milkshake. See, they are all wrong wrong wrong and make you feel a little bit off. But these are also a little bit funny and it would not be unusual for someone to barf yet laugh when they see them together.
Then there are the other word couplings that are really really gut-wrenching. Stomach-churning. At the completely other end of the spectrum and are so life-changing and shocking you really really don't want to see them together. At all. Ever.
Cancer and Children.
I am lucky in that I have never had to personally face the big C, and have never had anyone in my immediate family stand under that shadow. But that infamous 6-degrees-of-separation just became 1 degree when one of my closest and dearest friends dropped an absolute bombshell over the phone and told me her beautiful, cheeky, lively daughter had a malignant tumour and was being operated on in two days. I can't imagine how she actually got the strength to pick up the phone and start telling her family what her world has been forced to face.
My immediate reaction in situations of high stress is to laugh or cry - apparently physiologically there is no difference. This time I did neither. It was as if time stood still and so many thoughts flashed through my head. How would I feel if it was me? How unfair of this to happen to such a great family. How on earth do you explain to a three-year-old what is happening to them? How do you keep it together so they don't get scared? What happens to the dynamics of the family now? What about the other children, how will they cope? How do you keep yourself from thinking the worst and hoping for the best? What would I do if this happened to me? How do you keep from locking yourself in your room and just cry-cry-crying at the unfairness of it all?
It is early stages and as yet the cancer has no label. But this is the age of the internet and with that there should be a warning - google all you like but you may not like what comes back. To be honest, there is no liking what you see when you google cancer. And it is a bit black to then think to yourself "oh, I hope it is this one and not that one". You don't get a choice and you are a fool for thinking you do.
Then I had to face that strangest of moments when I was digesting this information - as unpaletable as all hell - and I hear the most gorgeous sound a mother can hear. Her children laughing and giggling and playing together. It was surreal - I was standing with all these thoughts in my head yet what I was seeing was the most beautiful sight. The most beautiful sound. And then I thought the worst thought ever, inevitable as it was. Thank god it wasn't happening to my child.
My dear friend, I am so sorry you are facing this challenge. I am sorry your world has just experienced a seismic shift and your foundation has turned to quicksand. And I am sorry I thought that thought. I feel like a traitor to our friendship and I just wish I could make everything ok. But I can't. All I can offer you is the knowledge that I will always be honest with you and not extol false platitudes. I meant it when I said to call any time. I need to know that I can help in some way, any way, to make up for this guilt that I feel.
And to make up for my anger that something like this is happening to such a wonderful family.
