Dear Cancer, I Might Miss You

Dear Cancer,

I have written this letter to you a thousand times in my head. Each time, I argued about how I felt about you. How could I be angry at something that takes such an impersonal form? You aren’t even real. You don’t have a soul. You are a mutation, a mistake, a tumor, an unwanted cell that has wreaked havoc on my body and my relationships. Destroying me and any of my future children wasn’t enough for you. I can see you all over my body, even when you are not there. My body is a battleground. I am technically a victor, but I don’t feel like one. Scars, tears, thin skin, and fragile muscles. Physically, I am so much older than my birthday tells me. There are stretch marks, but not from children.

My friends are having babies now; their light lives on through love and their bodies. I will never hold a child of my own. Your gift to me is the gift that keeps on giving; even in your absence, I can feel you around me. Your ghost is always in the shadows, lurking around every precious moment, asking me, “Will this be your last….?” You tease me with your comings and goings; you do love making a surprise entrance. You can almost sense when I get too comfortable, and that’s when you decide to visit. Uninvited, of course, but that’s your style; it always will be. You were a partner I never asked for, yet we have had many dances together, and it has been nothing but a dance of destruction ever since.

But I must ask myself, “Dear Cancer, what story do I want to tell about you?” And this is the question that drives me mad because I know this is the power you gave me. I get to speak for you; I get to write your story. You can do many heinous, destructive things, but you cannot tell your story. Only I can. I can create an uplifting story that has so many silver linings it almost feels toxic; I could ignore all the destruction you caused and just focus on the fact that “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?” But that wouldn’t be honest, that would be a lie. I could alternatively wallow in a story of victimization and focus on everything you took from my body, my spirit, my youth, and my marriage. These stories would be true, but they wouldn’t be honest; they are both only pieces. My brain is desperately trying to categorize you, Cancer, label you in some way as either wholly good or bad. The truth about you is that you are neither good nor bad nor black or white. You are a gray area for me. The truth is, when you came along, you called me back to my true self. You showed me that the only way I could survive is to find the strength from inside me and trust it again and again. You trained me to listen to myself and revealed my intuition, knowing that I had shut down for so long. In your destruction of me, you taught me how to honor the wisdom of my body. You showed me how to survive by tuning in to my heart, a voice I had started to silence. You showed me a way back to myself and revealed a part of me that I would have never found without great suffering. Before I met you, I thought my value was contingent on what I could do. Cancer, you brought me to my knees, and in the presence of ultimate despair, I found I had a true love for myself. I stopped criticizing myself and started to embrace not just the good parts but the hard ones as well. Each time you came back, you demanded more and more of me. At times, I thought this to be so cruel, but now, looking back, I see something much deeper. You were asking me to remove the layers that were never me. You were asking me to let go of roles and ideas, toxic stories that I should have never aligned with in the first place. You were calling me to a much deeper part of myself that could only be recognized in the fire of surrender. You gave me the gift of my true self. Cancer, you were refining me at a young age, telling me not to be bothered with accolades from society but instead to decide what was placed in my heart. Cancer, were you saving me from me? Could it be that in the end, you weren’t trying to destroy who I was but were trying to uncover the sincerest version of me? You were trying to bring me back home to myself. In this story, I am the victim and the victor; I have lost and I have won. The ending is sad, but it is true. But this is not the only story I have to tell about you. It is the beginning of many new beginnings. Some of them will be sad, too. Because of you, I know great pain, but I also know great joy. I know how to soak up a sunset with reverence, and I understand how to sit with someone in silence. Dear Cancer, sometimes when I find myself rushing through the simple things, I miss you. I miss that when you were here, I gave myself permission to appreciate every little gesture the Universe gave me. Cancer, you made the simple sacred. Sometimes, I wish you would come back, if only for a visit, just to remind me what a miracle it is to be alive. When you’re around, it’s easy to see only what matters. Cancer, when you’re around the laundry feels therapeutic, traffic is less aggravating, and I spend more time soaking up the presence of those around me. Cancer, when you’re around, it is easy to recognize what truly matters. Despite your abrasive, unwanted intrusion, a part of me is glad we met. Even though at times I miss you, I believe I have learned enough from you. I will cherish your lessons. I paid a very high price for them. I assure you I won’t forget them; I don’t want to miss you anymore.

With Gratitude,

Karrah

This article was featured in the June 2024 Dear Cancer issue of Elephants and Tea Magazine! Click here to read our magazine issues.