It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot destroy God’s peace.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot suppress memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot invade the soul.
It cannot conquer the spirit.
It cannot steal God’s gift of eternal life.
Cancer is so limited.
As Dr Dyomin started our first Oncology lesson with this poem, I felt a bitter sourness rising to my throat. These simple lines reawakened an emotion I thought I had buried too deeply to ever find again. To be bitter and angry is simply too easy.
I remember a fourth stage breast cancer patient we interviewed last year. Her frame, what was left of it, was a sadist's joke of a body. She must have been once beautiful. A dying shadow of her former beauty still clung onto the papery skin that was her face. Her few remaining strands of hair were kept in place with a headscarf. She covered her chest self-consciously as we entered the room.
The examination that day wasn't easy. Regret and frustration dominated the conversation as we asked her history. She had never done any self-examinations, and disregarded the early symptoms. By the time she finally visited a doctor it was too late - her cancer had progressed to the final stage.
As I read the poem I thought of her. Of this woman whose acquaintance I made for 10 minutes of my life, who probably is not with us anymore. Of my beloved grandparents, taken from us too soon. Of a friend, a young lady who succumbed too quickly to the beckoning of that black-robed Reaper. Of an uncle - a young father with a 2nd baby on the way. Still holding on.
As my thoughts turn to this family half a world away from me, I feel closer than ever to them. There is so much I want to tell the people I have lost, and those still fighting this demon within. Words about hope, and faith, and love. Yet words fail everytime, crumbling into helplessness.
Maybe we don't need too many words.
0 comments:
Post a Comment