http://www.newsday.com/ny-hscol1226,0,6442381.column
Dark thoughts intrude on a season of light
Lauren Terrazzano | Life, With Cancer
December 26, 2006
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Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Fark Google Newsvine Reddit Yahoo Print Reprints Post comment Text size: This time of year, the world is awash in New Year's resolutions. People hoping to lose weight, to get a better job, or to be a better mother, father, son or daughter.
I have a few resolutions as well. The first is to live. The second, more importantly, is to live well, despite knowing the threat of death is always there.
It is the most difficult of resolutions for anyone facing a serious illness. For those of us with cancer, the fear of death lingers coyly. It is always lurking as we plot our futures through doctor appointments, CT scans, biopsies and blood work. It creeps up at the oddest moments, like when it was time to renew my passport and I realized I could expire before the document does.
I know this may seem like a dark topic for the holidays, but the New Year is always a good time to figure out what you plan to do better.
With the help of loyal readers from Uniondale to the United Kingdom, I have tried to hum along with my life, writing about issues from humor to the high cost of cancer. But death is a topic I've largely avoided.
It would be so much easier not to write about it. In fact, it'd be a lot easier not to think about it. Note that the name of this column is Life, with Cancer. The emphasis is on "life."
But there it is sometimes. The fear of death keeps me up at night, or it wakes me at 4 a.m. and I listen for a sound -- any sound outside -- like a truck going by, to remind myself I am still here.
As a reporter, I've written hundreds of stories about people's deaths. I've made a career of asking uncomfortable questions with the hope of making sense of it all. Yet since that otherwise ordinary, sunny August day in 2004 -- the day of my diagnosis -- my ability to ask the tough questions about my own life has somehow disappeared. I find it hard to ask any of my doctors how much longer they think I have.
I can't bear to know, because to put a time frame on it will somehow taint the time I have left. Still, I am frequently haunted by this question I cannot bring myself to ask out loud.
Most people are afraid of death. Yet, we're all dying, a wise editor once told me. We're just doing it on different time schedules.
In my darkest moments, I worry about the future without me. First I worry about the grief of those I will leave behind. I wonder what people will say about me at my funeral. I wonder if I will be there in some way to hear it.
Grief fades with time. It's the feeling of loss that seems to linger -- the little, daily reminders that a person is no longer around.
For example, I think of all the catalogs that arrive at our apartment. Lands' End, Crate & Barrel, Victoria's Secret, and how they are all addressed to me. I think of how it will hurt my husband to see them after I'm gone when he makes his daily visit to the mailbox. I think about canceling the catalogs now, in an attempt to loss-proof my home, the way new parents child-proof theirs. If only it were that easy.
So how do we deal? There are no easy answers. Every day is a mental exercise, trying not to dwell on the inevitable. Staying busy helps. I got a Crock-Pot for a wedding shower gift, and I have begun to use it. I always thought it was for old ladies. Now my 30- and 40-something friends and I share recipes via e-mail. We call ourselves the Secret Society of Crockpot Crackpots. I also managed to send out my Christmas cards, as I do every year. This time they featured a photo of my husband, my dog and me in Central Park. We are smiling. The daily rhythms of everyday life, Christmas cards and Crock-Pots, are the things that keep it normal. Well, as normal as it can be.
In facing the prospect of dying, the one benefit is that you learn how to live. Not perfectly, but better than you did before. You don't take time for granted. You enjoy a Sunday morning bagel that much more. Time with your friends and family becomes even more special. And you appreciate the rare 50-degree day in December that allows you to finish your Christmas shopping.
So as you read this, I hope I'll be sitting on a beach in Puerto Rico, sipping a drink out of a coconut shell. Yes, I'll be trying to live life better than I did before. Then I plan to be back here in 2007, fulfilling my resolutions. Happy New Year.
