I called my friend, C. a few days ago to tease him about his upcoming birthday. Was he going to celebrate in a memorable way? I asked. After all, this year marks the beginning of a new decade, and one that deserves some recognition. “Besides,” I joked, “I’m so much younger than you are, and I called to see how my old friend,” emphasizing the word, “old,” is doing. We had a good laugh. The truth is I can only call myself younger than him for six months, but it’s our standing joke. We’ve been friends since high school and shared each other’s different life chapters for several decades now, including the joys and sorrows, graying of hair and stiffening of joints—the inevitable signs of aging both of us would like to forget.
We’ve also shared something else: cancer. A different kind of chapter, an unwelcome and unexpected one, where one’s sense of mortality, of the certainty of the life we thought we knew, changed and for a time, we were propelled into unwelcome fears of the outcome—and a greater appreciation for the life we each enjoy.
It’s true for all of us. Any unexpected hardship, life-threatening illness or loss thrusts us into new and unfamiliar territory, into a different chapter of life than the one we thought we were living. “The knowledge you’re ill…” Anatole Broyard wrote “is one of the momentous experiences of life” (in Intoxicated by My Illness and Other Writings on Life & Death, 1993). So momentous, in fact, it sometimes overshadows everything that came before it
I witness, year in and year out, the shock, pain and yet, resilience, of men and women who are living with cancer. It’s a momentous and overwhelming chapter of life, and for some, the final chapter, And yet, I think of so many who, facing their final months of life, do not, in the end, let cancer define them. Novelist Alice Hoffman, writing about her cancer experience, remembered the wisdom offered to her by her oncologist:
An insightful, experienced oncologist told me that cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter. Still, novelists know that some chapters inform all others. These are the chapters of your life that wallop you and teach you and bring you to tears, that invite you to step to the other side of the curtain, the one that divides those of us who must face our destiny sooner rather than later. (New York Times, August 14, 2000).
Cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter. I’ve quoted Hoffman innumerable times because she reminds us that although our lives are often turned inside out by cancer—or any other life threatening illness–it is not who we are. Cancer is not our identity. I think of A., one of the writers in my Scripps groups, who often said, “I may have cancer, but it doesn’t have me.” Her spirit and determination to live as fully as possible for whatever time she had remaining inspired us all.
But cancer changes us. As sociologist and cancer survivor Arthur Frank said, “Being ill is just another way of living…but by the time we have lived through it, we are living differently” (in At the Will of the Body; Reflections on Illness, 2002). Who we are, truly, is revealed as we confront a life threatening illness like cancer. Our uniqueness, our humanity, is more apparent when illness strips any pretense away.
In the weekly meetings of my cancer writing groups, I witness the struggle, sorrow, vulnerability and courage among the individuals who attend. For a time, cancer dominates what gets written, but gradually—and this is a sign of healing, of becoming whole—other chapters of life begin to be expressed.
I remember P., a member of the Stanford group, who struggled valiantly with an aggressive cancer that ultimately took her life. Yet as the months wore on and her cancer spread, she wrote less about cancer and more about all she had lived and endured. It was an act of bearing witness to her life—and being witnessed by those of us in the group. Raised in Sri Lanka, she had endured unimaginable hardship during the civil war, but after coming to the U.S., found freedom, academic success and love. Her stories revealed the depth of her courage and a legacy of life that would live well beyond her death. Everyone felt a deeper appreciation for who she was—not a cancer patient, but a remarkable young woman whose life was a testament to her courage and resilience.
Cancer wallops us, brings us to tears, but it teaches us, just as the other chapters of life have taught us something about ourselves. If I look back over my life, my chapters are less defined by decades and more by those events—difficult, challenging, and momentous—that taught me something deep and lasting about myself.
In a short poem, “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, “Portia Nelson creates a humorous, yet insightful, brief portrait of her life.
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Chapter 5
I walk down another street.
(From: There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self Discovery, Atria Books, 1994)
Consider the chapters of your life. Suppose you were asked to write a book proposal for an autobiography of your life. One of the elements to include is an outline of chapters you envision for the entire book. Make your outline. Give each chapter a title. Then try writing a short autobiography in the style of Portia Nelson’s or, if you prefer, choose just one chapter and describe the event that defines it. What did you learn from it? Your stories are your legacy, evidence of the life you’ve lived, who you were then and, as you reflect, how you became the person you are now. Besides, if you don’t tell your story, who will?
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