The work as a cancer advocate can be quite rewarding - but it has its challenges too. For the majority of my short time in this arena, I have been able to meet patients at the beginning of their journeys; just finding out their family history, encouraging them to undergo testing, a "mutation positive" result, preventive surgeries (my personal favorite!) or a newly diagnosed cancer.
But recently it seems the reality of working with cancer is catching up to me. Not everyone survives. In the last year I have worked with several terminally ill women who have undergone genetic testing to give knowledge to their families, in hopes that maybe there was an answer for their cancer. I have found myself playing more of a supporting role through their final days - and also through the family's transition to a "new normal".
As I've spent time with these grieving families - I've taken some time to reflect on my own experience with grief. I don't believe grief is some "cycle" that can be completed. Grief is not a tunnel that we walk through and other the other side we're just "over it", grief is ongoing.
The question I've been getting a lot is "How?" How do you move on? How do you stop crying? How do you not think of them 100% of the time? How do you find happiness again?
“The Box”
Sometimes your mind puts painful
memories into a “box” in the back of your mind. A compartment where memories
can be filed and visited.
The box is always there, but you learn to talk
about a difficult experience without the raw memories in that box escaping. You
see, when you first lose someone, the box hasn’t been built. The emotions and
memories run wild. You may be having a great day and a thought, a song, or even
a person may send you spiraling back into inconsolable heartache and sadness.
Our “box” is our way of surviving,
because I can tell you, there’s no way a person could go on to live without the
box. You feel like a victim of your own life, you’re at the mercy of everyone
and everything around you – but you’re not sure what to fear day to day. You
long to go to the grocery store without crying, you hope the radio doesn’t play
“your song”, yet you hope someone mentions their name just because it’s a
comfort to know others think about them and miss them too.
The box can be a scary place. You
fear losing the memories. You want to keep every memory of them, even the hard
ones, alive – because in some weird way, if the memories are alive, they’re not
entirely “gone”. The only thing worse than remembering your loved one, is the
fear of them being forgotten.
As months and years pass, you will
notice that you are able to pinpoint what your triggers are, maybe a
date/anniversary, a holiday, an item. You will be able to prepare your heart
for the pain that day will bring. You will know who you can be around and who
you want to avoid. You will find that your loved one’s favorite Mexican
restaurant will not be a place to avoid on their birthday – but rather a
destination to celebrate their life and memory.
The things, people, and places
that were once “triggers” are now “comforts”. I don’t know exactly when that
crossover happens or that there’s a definitive point – but it happens.
The box makes it possible.
The box cannot be neglected, the
box needs to be visited and maintained. This is why grief is ongoing – grieving
never ends. The memories in the box may be a blend of really graphic, hard,
“negative” times. Perhaps the actual death of the person you loved – a struggle
or battle they fought. In my mom’s case, it’s thinking about what chemo did to
her mind and body, memories of holding her hand and remembering the texture of
her skin and certain glows in her eyes. I knew she was dying. I forced myself
to make mental note of the way she breathed, the way her voice sounded, what
her handwriting looked like. Most, if not all of these mental notes, are housed
in the box.
The box may be home to really
happy memories, too. Some of these memories may be the happiest times of your
life. You may wonder how this memory ended up in the box – sometimes it’s
because your happiest days were with that person. I think this is our heart’s
way of letting us find peace. If we compared every vacation, every “jam
session” in the car, every cozy night in -- to the ones we had with our loved one,
we may never find the same, pure joy again.
The box is something we need to fully
embrace. The box not only allows us to survive, but to thrive. The box allows
us to lay our head on the pillow without crying ourselves to sleep. The box
allows us to make new memories with those we love, who are still here.