SMILING AT CANCER – A Personal Journey of Love and Letting Go

More than 40 years ago, the world changed for the first time on a winter afternoon

In the cafeteria of a small college in Southern California, my friend Tim looked out the window and said, “Oh, there is Mary”.

I looked outside. The Mary waiting there was a different Mary, not the Mary Northcutt I knew. She had spent the spring semester in England. But this was not her. When I saw her, I jumped out of my seat, hurried across the crowded room and ran around the building toward her. When I reached her, I took her in my arms and spun her around. When I put her down, her face was full of surprise and amazement. I realized that the world's axis had shifted, and my life would never be the same.

It took me a few years to accept that she was still the one. Eventually, one day she softened, and we moved to Michingan, surrounded by great lakes and even greater dreams. We pursued our careers, built our lives and raised two wonderful children. We were content; our life was not wonderful, but it was better than most. We were happy and had friends. We were self-sufficient.

Then the world changed again

When Mary went for a routine colonoscopy, she came back with news of stage 4 colorectal cancer. The life we had built suddenly came to an end. We were now in other people's hands. It was as if we had crossed another border and entered the land of cancer. Suddenly, we lost control of our lives. We went where we were told to go and did what we were told to do.

Mary underwent tests for two weeks and failed every one of them. Next in our scenario came treatment planning and operations. Early in the process, we knew we were lost in a maze, and we decided to stop apologizing to each other, crying and, above all, trying to control something beyond our control. They talked about a lifespan of about 1 year if the worst happened, but she decided to take 6 years. She would accept cancer and then laugh at it.

Mary successfully came through two major operations and underwent almost continuous chemotherapy and radiotherapy over the following 6 years. She continued receiving the various treatments until they stopped giving them. They stopped when there were no sensible treatment options left that we had not tried and that had not failed.

Then began the process of learning how to die. Even then, her smile remained intact, even when she visited the funeral home and reserved her coffin. Everything was decided: the visitor cards were chosen, the visiting arrangements and the process of being taken to the church. When everything had been said and done, Mary did what she always did after a successful shopping trip. She mimicked applause and said, “hooray.” The funeral home representative almost fell out of his chair.

Over those six years, we learned many valuable life lessons

Perhaps the greatest lesson was that cancer was not just a way of dying, but a way of living. We learned how to recognize true friendship, and we realized that our closest friends were not simply the people we saw very often or went out to dinner with. Sometimes we discovered that people we had not seen for years were also our friends. Old classmates, companions from cities where we had previously lived and people who were not related to us showed themselves to be far more valuable than the people we saw every day. This was not a matter of not wanting our friends or turning down their support, but we received help from those people and learned how to accept it.

People react differently when they learn that you have cancer

Some people's tone of voice changes. There are good friends who cannot face it. There are people who do not know what to say or how to say it. They could not pretend that they did not care about the cancer, because it showed on their faces, but still they could not talk. So they ran away, and we let them go.

I did not judge them, because I had been one of them. Being unable to be a friend while someone is dying is a special kind of failure, because you will never, ever have a chance to make up for it. Perhaps that was why I walked alongside Mary for more than 30 years. Perhaps I was trying to make up for those things.

One thing I did for those who drifted away from us, as well as those who stayed by our side, was to send periodic updates about treatment. But these stories were about the life we were living and the successful way we greeted each day, not about how painfully a day began or how difficult it became before it ended. I also did this partly so that, when they finally asked me, “How is Mary?”, after gathering the courage, I could erase the humiliation etched on their faces.

Mary was doing very well; we kept discovering new things to value

Sunsets became more precious and striking. We would enjoy a good dinner and wonderful wine, and eventually planned to open a winery and work in the vineyards we planted. We learned that when your days are numbered, we need to make every moment count.

Eventually, when cancer knew it would win, it did its victory dance and victory lap and said to Mary, “You owe me five years, and I will take all of them over the next two weeks”. It was very difficult for me, and of course harder for her. But when she died, far more than family and friends were with her. They had become an inseparable part of her life, and they still are, even today. Of my life, too...

The article above was written by Michael Goodell. Michael Goodell was born on the east coast of the United States, grew up on the west coast and now lives beside the Great Lakes on the United States' third coast. He is the author of two novels, ZENITH RISING and REBOUND, and also published THE WORLD SHIFTED, a memoir about his wife Mary's experience with cancer. 1 $ from every copy sold goes to cancer research. His two grown children, Emily and Matthew, grow grapes and sell wine at Amoritas Vineyards, which was Mary's dream and continues as her legacy.