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by Selma R. Schimmel
As a two-time cancer survivor, of breast cancer at 28 and ovarian cancer at 48, I have had a lot of opportunity to ponder healing and hope. There are many aspects of life over which we lack control; it’s how we interpret and work with and through life’s most difficult encounters that sets the tone for living and co-existing with pain and loss.
I have learned hope is a constant, but constantly transforming to meet one’s individual needs. What one hopes for at the time of diagnosis may change along the way. Even through the most difficult times, hope is never absent. Those facing advanced disease are not hopeless. Instead of hoping to be cured, they may hope to avoid pain, to retain their dignity, to resolve old issues and conflicts in their lives and for the chance to tell those they love how they feel. Perhaps they have hope of reuniting with those who have passed on before them. But most of all, people have hope that their lives have had meaning and purpose, that they have left behind an imprint, a memory, something of themselves to benefit their children and others. In this way, hope lightens the load and helps one live fully in the moment.
Healing, I’ve found, is very different than curing or being cured. Cure implies a successful clinical outcome and the eradication of disease from the body. Healing, on the other hand, is born out of self-discovery, part of an inner process, the recovery of the whole self from the trauma of disease and its pervasive impact on every aspect of our lives. Healing takes place over time. It is a process—and a person can be cured even before they are healed, just as they can be healed without ever being cured.
I have always believed that cancer is a metaphor for the many malignancies we face in life. Whether we are dealing with a tumor, an addiction, or a destructive relationship, we have to battle a plethora of lifelong challenges and losses; however, what matters most is not what such events do to us, but rather, what we do with these events.
A young woman with very advanced cancer once shared her wisdom with me, her words conveyed with unforgettable calm, peace, and faith: “Where I live, we get cloudy winters. With clouds day after day, it’s easy to get depressed. So now when I get up in the morning and look out the window, even if it’s a cloudy day, I say, thank you God, I’ve got one more day. I don’t see the clouds, because I know the sun is shining above them.”
It is with such faith that we cope, hope, and endure.
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Selma's essay is from the book of essays, The World is a Narrow Bridge: Stories that Celebrate Hope and Healing. The book is is edited by Diane Arieff, with an introduction by Craig Taubman, and published by Sweet Louis Productions. Selma is the CEO and founder of Vital Options® International TeleSupport® Cancer Network, a not-for-profit organization based in Southern California. She started the outreach organization in 1983 after her breast cancer diagnosis. Each Sunday, she talks with more than half a million listeners affected by cancer when she hosts The Group Room®, a national syndicated weekly radio call-in talk show. Her book, Cancer Talk: Voices of Hope and Endurance from ‘The Group Room,’ the World’s Largest Cancer Support Group (Broadway books, 1999), was inspired by these national conversations.
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