Tag Archives: grief

Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Letting It Out

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I realized this week that I’ve been holding in my grief a bit too tightly. My shoulders and back were starting to ache, and there was this massive pressure of compressed grief coming from my heart. It is exhausting trying to hold it in all the time.

When I go grocery shopping (for example) I run into up to five different people who know what is happening to my family and who ask how we’re doing. This is the blessing and curse of living in a smallish town and being open about Brock’s cancer diagnosis. I can’t cry on five shoulders within 30 minutes — I’d be a wreck and end up never leaving our house — so I put on my comfortable Dealing With The Public face and smile while providing truthful, unhappy updates. My self-imposed role has always been to manage other people’s feelings and I continue to do this now.

Brock’s health is deteriorating rapidly — much more quickly than either of us expected — and the truth is that I am sad about it all. There’s no need to hide it. It’s my habit to Put On A Brave Face and smile through conflict, but this is a situation that has absolutely no silver lining and no one expects me to smile. If anything, they are very confused that I’m able to discuss it all with them without sobbing.

So earlier this week I decided to let the dam crack a bit. I intentionally watched Still Alice on Netflix: a movie about a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s. It’s very sad and I let myself cry. I felt myself relax a little bit into our own sadness, this daily grief of living with terminal cancer.

A few days later I watched some of Brock’s farm machines be sold and loaded onto the buyer’s trailer. Brock had longed for these machines for years, researched and designed and finally custom-built them. We never really got to use them to their full capacity before his cancer diagnosis, and to see them be carried away — to see that tangible reminder of the death of his vision, that incredible waste — made me so sad. This time, instead of smothering the grief, I let myself cry.

It feels very, very good to finally let myself be sad.

Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Grieving in Public

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Sometimes when I talk to friends/family/strangers about the cancer I confuse them, because I’m not wailing and crying on them. Some people are uncomfortable around crying people (maybe most of us are) and so perhaps this is a relief, that they don’t have to deal with me sobbing, but I often sense that they’re confused: why aren’t I crying? How can I smile and make cancer jokes and get my grocery shopping done?

It’s a funny thing, to feel pressured to grieve in public. Sometimes I let the crying come, depending on the person. There are wonderful, sympathetic huggers in my life. But most of the time I suck it in, focus instead on relaying the updates that Brock would be comfortable sharing: I don’t mention the diarrhea, but headaches are okay.

I’m careful not to be too specific about our treatment plan (pills), because we are surrounded by well-meaning hippies and if I open that door then there will an onslaught of homeopathic advice. I know people have loving intentions, and they want to be helpful, but those suggestions enrage me, and suddenly I’m holding back mean words instead of tears.

(Brief pause here to watch a favourite Mitchell and Webb clip …)

Ha.

From a practical perspective (and we’re very practical people), if I cried on every single person I ran into who asked about the cancer or Brock, then I’d be crying quite a lot and wouldn’t get many of my daily tasks accomplished. I like it that our community cares about us, and I like it when people ask how Brock’s doing. I am trying to figure out a response that doesn’t confuse the nice people who check in with us.