Curse of Cancer

I named this blog Too Common of a Life after a coming-of-age type poem I had written many years ago because I truly believe that any of my life situations/stories or those I witness of others are not unique, although how one experiences these situations are unique to the individual. This make life so interesting. This is why I love poetry, its ability to capture commonality and uniqueness.

For those who read this, you know that I am witnessing the curse of cancer. Cancer is too common of a life. Google cancer stories, cancer poems, cancer walks, etc and there is a plethora of people who have survived, been killed by, or witnessed the curse of cancer. While I factually knew this to be the case, I now personally know it.

When knowledge moves from external recognition to internal reality, it is powerful. This knowledge can become a tsunami, damaging everything in its path. It is a knowledge that one must get a hold of and it is this experience of "taking control of such intense knowledge" or "controlling the aftermath of the curse" that I am interested in hearing more about. I suppose this is what support groups are for, or message boards, but these venues just don't appeal to me, at least not at this particular moment.

I don't want to talk about my experience of steering this knowledge (although this blog is exactly that), I want to understand my experience through the voice of others. I want to listen deeply to how others make sense of this reality. This is how I cope. This is how I learn. This is how I will be able to live through the cancer disaster that is devastating my father's life, my family's life.

The riptide is forceful and coming up for air is not always an option, but it is a necessity to my survival. My father will not survive this curse, but his family must. My father's life must remain meaningful even after he leaves us. I know what I want or where I need to bring my experience, but I am unsure of how to get it, or how to get there.

Damn the curse of cancer; I raise my fist to you. You will not drown me. You will not confuse me. You may be taking my father without his choice (a sucker punch I have no respect for), but I will not go down without a bloody fight.