Put Away the Binoculars

When someone in your life – particularly someone very close to you – is living with terminal cancer, it’s hard to keep every day from becoming a Death Watch. Even though your friend or loved one may be symptom-free, even though their cancer may be in a holding pattern, even though they are LIVING with cancer and may very well be focused on enjoying life and living, too often you find yourself focused on the dying part. When will it happen? How will I know when it’s begun? What will the final journey be like for this person I love? How will I rise to the occasion, manage the anxiety and sadness, make their passage easier in the face of my own grief?

When you allow death to become your overarching concern, it robs you of your ability to live in the moment and enjoy the present. Instead of spending the valuable hours, days, even months ahead fully sharing the LIFE of your loved one and the savoring the pleasures that remain, you dwell in a shadow place, where Death and darkness clouds your every waking thought.  

You know what this means? It means Death has already become victorious. By engaging in a premature Death Watch, you are robbing from your cancer-battling friend a chunk of the positive, energizing, healthy recognition they deserve for having made it through another stretch of outrunning their disease. They need to have their symptom-free days celebrated and shared. If you are engaged in a Death Watch, you are distracted (and distracting). You cannot honestly and positively participate in the wonderful realization that your friend – and not the cancer – is winning.

But there’s something else that’s rotten about a premature Death Watch. It’s killing you. Cancer is not only eating away at the one you love, it’s chipping away at your emotions, your spirit, and yes, your physical health.  You have tuned into The Death Channel and have become a captive audience. Believe me, Death is having a field day with this – it’s a twofer for the Grim Reaper.

Hard as it is, do not give Death this early lead. Don’t give Death the space to start its victory celebration way earlier than is warranted. Cancer is terrifying enough, without letting it dominate your life, gnawing away at the happy memory-making experiences that lie ahead for you, your friend, and your family. 

When you wake up in the morning, instead of focusing on “How much longer do we have…?” try to train your thoughts to imagine “How many more opportunities for joy…”  If you can measure time in terms of the probable pleasures still to come…instead of on the unpredictable/unknowing final days…health will have the upper hand over cancer.  And that can only be good for everyone involved.