The Most Terrifying Words

If you came here today thinking you might get a laugh please stop reading and go elsewhere. I'm sorry to disappoint you.

It's 2:30 AM in the morning and after hours of tossing and turning on the sofa I finally gave up.

The big "C". And being an older single guy, my life has been shaped by it. No, the word I'm talking about here isn't "commitment", it is "cancer". I think the most terrifying words in the English language are "It's malignant."

Recently I've begun to think that I am a carcinogenic.

In the 10th grade of high school, I dated a young woman who was full of life and very talented. She marched in the band, acted in the school drama club, took honors English, and laughed with me when we did things together. She and I never actually broke up - one morning she learned she had pancreatic cancer, and few short, horrible months later, she was gone and I bitterly learned that life is transient - and we don't actually ever have anything to keep forever.

I didn't date much after that in high school, and in college, it took just about everything I had to keep from being flunked out - 20 hours of class and studying each day didn't make for much free time. For all I joke about doing foolish things with the guys, those episodes of fun where few and far between. Once I graduated, I moved back into the area I grew up in, and started dating again. One woman I enjoyed seeing soon after college broke up with me when her mother died of cancer. She became morose and withdrew from life - actually closing the curtains in her home and refusing to leave it for months on end.

About that time my Great-Aunt (my dad's mom's sister), who was a feisty, combative, spirited woman, was found to have cancer. She battled it as bravely as anyone I've ever seen - she never grew despondent, she never gave up. She didn't win her battle though.

A couple years later, my Grandmother was diagnosed with cancer - it started as freckle growths on her face and neck. She was a very sick woman for a year...before she too, lost her battle with the disease.

I was by this time working in the drug business - part of my motivation was to help find cures for these horrible diseases that haunt our existence. Not being a doctor or chemist, my involvement was setting up computers that were (and are) used to store the results of clinical trials; trials used to see if experimental, new compounds both work and are safe.

The second drug company I worked at, I worked with a engaging young woman with the most beautiful golden blond hair and a heart-melting smile. The warmth in her voice when she said "Hello" was truly genuine and she was a delight to work with - and our work paths crossed frequently - for she tended the computer that "my stuff" was on. We played on the company's volleyball team together, she was grace personified in the back court. I on the other hand was nicknamed Mr. Grass-stain as my efforts often left me covered with them. When we had a free moment she would talk to me about her dreams - simple sweet ones of having a couple children with Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome. Then the fateful day came and she no longer came to work. She had ovarian cancer. I remember going to the hospital to visit her - shocked and dismayed to see her bald head, the black rings under her eyes, and her voice but a husky whisper. She survived but lost her dream - and I never worked with her or saw her again.

A few months later, an older woman I worked with on projects together with, 8-9-10 hours a day, who I greatly respected both in terms of her knowledge and her attitude, someone that bailed me out of a dozen or more jams - found out she had a lump on her breast. She ignored it and worked on. Finally she couldn't ignore it any longer and they operated - and thankfully she survived by the narrowest of margins - but her attitude changed as she came to realize that she had a family with two young girls and she, as a workaholic was missing out on things - she resigned from work and only later, when her girls were grown up, did she go back to work - by then I had moved on. Here, I know it's just selfish to think about what I lost, a mentor and able teammate - but in the end, I should be happy she learned to "smell the roses" in time.

At this time, I felt the need to...do more. So I did some walks for cancer, fundraising, volunteer work like manning tables and booths during parades and walks - and begun searching for other ways to...somehow make a difference.

And then I lost a friend, a mentor, and a personal hero to prostate cancer. The disease is relentless and it steals from both its victim and the bystander.

I ended up doing things for foundations like "Make a Wish" - and trying to ease the burden for children that had cancer (and their parents) - and to me, this is the most horrible form of cancer - that which afflicts the youngsters and the young women and men who haven't had time to realize the promise they show.

And I...couldn't do this anymore than I could work at the shelter for troubled people - I tried for a couple years, but the pain and grief of those that were left behind - combined with the tragic loss of those that lost their battles - and those that live on but are but hollow shells of what they once were - forced me to back away for my own preservation.

Today, I regularly donate to the American Cancer Society what I can - and look for ways where I can personally make a difference, but in a internal contradiction, somehow needing to guard myself from emotional involvement.

And in the wee hours of this morning, I am tormented with the thinking that some of what I've done recently is too little and far too late - and with the knowing that someone else I love has recently heard the words, "It's malignant."