Tags
Cancer, Comforting Others, Compassion, Death, Illness, Limitations of Language, Offering Support, Rape, Support Groups, Trauma
Carrie spoke through narrow lips that looked like they were sewn on too tightly. She had the gravelly voice of a lifetime smoker, but her trembly tone and hesitant nature made her barely audible. She seldom talked to people during the support group, and if she did she never peered directly into anyone’s eyes. She usually sat near a corner of the room, always making sure to face the only door leading in or out.
Carrie was petite and jittery. The pale foundation she slathered on her cheeks and the thick black lines she drew under her eyes did not conceal her frailty. Her dry, bleached-blonde hair tapered sharply just below her shoulders. It hung in solid-looking clumps that, like the rest of her, seemed as brittle as icicles.
Carrie usually dressed in snug, almost colorless acid-washed jeans and plain, baggy, crew neck sweatshirts in creamy tones of pastel pink or yellow. In all those faint colors, she sometimes appeared as though she might fade away. The exception was her polished white-leather sneakers. They never had a single scuff or mark anywhere on them. The laces were pristine, too, and always double-knotted and tightened to an extreme.
Whenever I remember Carrie, I think about the control that we do and do not have over our lives and about how we often end up coping with trauma and illness in arbitrary ways. Carrie had the unbelievably horrible misfortune of being brutally raped by two different strangers on two separate occasions. I don’t pretend to know how Carrie’s tendency to practically bind her feet with those spotless, white laces helped her feel a tiny bit safer. Still, I would guess that this seemingly insignificant and maybe even maladaptive attempt at controlling her body gave her a small sense of security. I pictured Carrie using a vice in the morning to meticulously cinch her shoelaces and needle-nosed pliers at night to diligently untie them.
In our support group, they tried to reassure and empower us. With the best of intentions, they encouraged us to think of and talk about ourselves as “survivors” instead of “victims.” Yet, when I look back at Carrie and consider how the unfathomable randomly happened to her not once, but twice, I have a hard time seeing how this distinction between victim and survivor helps. Both of those labels seem inadequate. They remind me of Zhang Longxi’s observation in The Myth of Other, where he asserts that “artificial language systems arise from the desire to impose order on a chaotic universe.” That Carrie survived and was still sustaining herself was incredible, but calling her a survivor and not a victim seems dismissive of her constant struggle and at the same time unrealistically demanding of her remaining reserves. And venerating her mostly non-existent agency and involuntary stoicism just feels disingenuous.
My tendency to recoil when people talk about “surviving” tragedy or “battling” sickness is not unique to Carrie’s story. I feel uncomfortable when people use war and sports analogies in the context of illness or trauma. Recently, as I was trying to figure out why the “winning-the-good-fight” lexicon seems to chafe at me as it does, I recalled my father’s bewildering decision to choose the doctor in the Hermès necktie. I had never been able to justify my father’s strange calculus before, but somehow for the first time ever I realized that his baffling choice was a lot like Carrie’s. Under very different but equally devastating circumstances, both my father and Carrie managed to create a tiny bit of solace for themselves by fixating on quotidian objects that had little to do with actually providing safety.
Unlike Carrie, my father was a tall, pompous, and outspoken man. He had a thick, dark beard that had once matched his eyes but had grayed significantly in his fifties. Sometimes, he spoke with a pretentious-sounding accent. He took pleasure in exaggerating the enunciation of uncommon words, and he often came across as unapologetically elitist and arrogant. He didn’t realize that fast-food restaurants do not employ waiters, until his youngest child was a teenager looking for a summer job. And, he prided himself on never having owned an uncollared shirt. Still, he could be charming. He enjoyed hosting friends and family in his home, always making sure to stock his bar and wine cellar with his guests’ favorite drinks. Although I don’t have a lot of happy father-daughter memories, when my father was feeling magnanimous, something about his broad smile and bright eyes made me feel at ease.
My father learned that he had cancer after a tumor in his gut ruptured and spilled out into his abdominal cavity. The on-call doctor, who performed the emergency surgery that saved my father’s life, happened to be a surgeon in chief at the hospital. Not only did this physician have a distinguished title, he was also a European-born world-traveler with an impressive wine collection. As a result, when my father awoke from the anesthesia, this genteel surgeon in a respectable Hermès necktie was the person who delivered the bad news.
The rarity, aggressiveness, and chemotherapy-resistance of my father’s particular type of sarcoma meant that the prognosis for anyone was not promising. With all those cancerous cells swimming around in his body after the rupture, the prognosis for my father was even worse. Given all of these factors, my sisters and I could not understand why anyone would select a general surgeon to manage and direct his care instead of an oncologist with at least some experience treating this sort of cancer. My father didn’t seem to concern himself with what was medically sound or logical, though. When he looked at the man in the Hermès tie, he felt he was in good hands, and that was that.
Not long after my father was released from the hospital for the first time and within days of realizing that this rare form of cancer was in all likelihood terminal, he gathered his adult children around him to let us know that if he had to die young, he was “going to go down fighting.” He seemed hopeful that through his outward responses and fierce attitude he would refuse to be a “victim” and in so doing accomplish something profound. I think my father truly believed that, in the process of grappling with this disease, he could show his children how to “die with dignity.”
My father and I rarely came at things from the same perspective. To my mind, being sick usually sucks; trauma can change you forever; and enduring pain and anguish at times feels unbearable. When I think about those experiences, I have a hard time identifying the champions or the heroes. And if there is virtue or glory to be had, I don’t see that, either. While I believe that courage, dignity, and fortitude are admirable traits, I have yet to find any evidence of how those characteristics reliably help people avoid heartache, illness, pain, or death. So when my father made his declaration to all of us, I had no idea what he meant.
I never asked my father how he imagined himself fighting for a dignified death. In my estimation, though, fighting and dignity rarely factored into my father’s experiences of living with cancer. What I know for certain is that, with the aid of a general surgeon in understated designer neckties, my father endured multiple surgeries (some needed others probably not) along with several elongated hospital stays, and a period of coma-like unconsciousness followed by months in a decrepit rehabilitation center. After two years of that and with scores of palliative drugs, round-the-clock nursing, tireless attention from his wife, and lots of pain and grief, my father died just short of his 60th birthday. I can’t say if he died with dignity or not. But no one won any battles; no medals or trophies were handed out; and in the end my father was not a survivor, but a victim of cancer.
According to several thesauruses, the word “victim” is synonymous with words like wretch, fool, pushover, and sucker. I don’t know why victim status has become so shameful or how terms like “patient,” “sufferer,” or “griever” became so unpalatable, but I am not convinced that we improve things by replacing those words with images of warriors defeating evil enemies or by exchanging supposedly marginalizing language for ideas about “staying strong.” The more I think about our society’s aversion to labeling someone a victim and our propensity to lionize survivorhood and the valor that ostensibly accompanies it, the more I wonder if we are really seeing people as they are.
My father’s choice to seek treatment from an inappropriately qualified doctor seemed irresponsible and irrational in so many ways, and part of me felt angry at the general surgeon who had allowed my father to make such a poor decision. Just before my father died, though, he made a point of admitting that he had been wrong. He knew that we all disapproved of his doctor, but he wasn’t regretting his medical care or agreeing with our assessment of the man in the Hermès tie. Rather, he wanted to tell us that there was no good reason for the cancer, no honor in living through pain, and most important of all no “right” way to die.
I can’t recall any other time when my father seemed as unguarded with me, and I am grateful for that unadulterated moment of openness from him. I only wish that I had been able to offer him the same compassion and empathy that I easily felt for Carrie when I thought about her unusual coping strategies. My father knew that he was dying and that there was very little he could do to change or control what was inevitable. So, just like Carrie, he simulated control in a way that was true to who he was, regardless of how incomprehensible his decision seemed.
All of us cope in arbitrary and irrational ways, and frankly everyone is a survivor until they die. The methods that we use to get by probably do not make us noble, courageous, or dignified; they just make us human. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but my father did show me something about how to die, not with dignity or strength or bravery, but with honesty.
dodgysurfer said:
Very honest and touching, and of course well-written. Thank you for sharing, it really helps to see someone else’s perspective and shared experiences.
LikeLiked by 1 person
dodgysurfer said:
I would add that your observations and comments about control really resonate with my own. My father’s behaviour as cancer and treatment took their toll was very difficult for us as a family, particularly my mother and I, to understand or cope with.
From the control perspective, my own experiences of life since his death and the corresponding demise of my marriage led to my complete loss of control in just about every aspect of my life, and my mind. For me the only thing I retained some kind of control over was my bikes and my camper van.
Like the shoes, everything else had gone, just a tiny little area was all I could manage.
I can’t for a moment understand how that woman you so deftly and respectfully described felt, but again you say that we all behave in our own strange ways when dealing with traumatic circumstances of significance to us. Thanks for making me feel I can open up.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for your willingness to open up and for taking the time to share part of your story. I am sorry to hear that you have had to struggle with the loss of your father and your marriage as much as you have. I’m glad, though, that my perspective on our shared experiences was helpful in some small way.
Take care,
Francesca
LikeLike
dodgysurfer said:
I hadn’t meant to write about myself, but there was so much in this that I can relate to. I was hoping that by letting you know how you had touched me, and why, because I recognised so much here, that you might feel that you are ‘not alone’ in some of those thoughts.
My dad also liked to enunciate rarely used words too, all the time, I recall him laughing at me when I pronounced ‘trait’ with a t on the end, like most normal people would!
My reply to you was instant, heartfelt, and, I have to admit, somewhat hard to see when I typed it. That’s because your words were also heartfelt and touched on so many difficult subjects.
I can’t speak for your Father but I can tell you that my own was pretty difficult in the last few months. He was in denial and wouldn’t discuss anything serious right until he couldn’t deny it any longer, when he was moved to the hospice, and then he just gave in to whatever whim he chose, no matter what any of us thought.
But then, he was of that generation when men didn’t cry, or complain, or talk about their feelings, or show any emotion that wasn’t manly. And he was full of god knows what medication, steroids, which can make one feisty, morphine, and he was in pain, and he was trying to get his head around his own impending demise – how the hell does one do that?! – and trying to forget all the things he hadn’t done, should have done, the mess he might have been leaving behind because he wasn’t facing up to the unfathomable-for-him reality and so hadn’t done that stuff.
I can’t hold any of that against him, even though I really wanted him to talk and say important things, because I just can’t imagine how I would be in his position.
Maybe your dad was going through similar thoughts. I hope that somehow this helps you, as your sincere recollections helped me, by making it all feel human and fallible.
And the sensitivity you displayed writing about that poor woman says a lot about you, and helps us readers who recognise some of this stuff in our own lives feel that compassion and empathy can be found, rather than living with the shame of our own ‘fallibility’ in dealing with what life deals us.
Hope that makes sense! No blurred vision this time.
Please keep writing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dani said:
Beautifully written. And this:
“The more I think about our society’s aversion to labeling someone a victim and our propensity to lionize survivorhood and the valor that ostensibly accompanies it, the more I wonder if we are really seeing people as they are.”
Acute and deeply moving.
With blessings,
Dani
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you so much for reading and commenting.
All the best,
Francesca
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deborah Drucker said:
I can understand wanting to mobilize ones will to live and I do believe that it helps your immune system.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I wish that “wanting to mobilize one’s will to live” could always help our immune systems, but most of the studies that I have seen do not seem to be able to substantiate this claim. If we assume that having the right kind of attitude is enough to make someone better, then what are we saying about the people who do not survive or about those for whom there is no cure?
Best,
Francesca
LikeLiked by 1 person
Deborah Drucker said:
Not everyone survives and it does not mean they did not have a will to live. It isn’t exactly “the right attitude” I am talking about. It is mobilizing your inner resources. Well it is a will to live. Of course you have other things to help you like medical treatment.
LikeLike
roughghosts said:
Your writing is thoughtful and heart wrenching. I worked for years with adults with acquired brain injuries and there was sometimes a question of how terms like “victim” and “survivor” should be employed and who truly owns them. Ideally the individual deserves the dignity to decide (and evolve with the identification). But for those of us who drive support, inspiration or share the journey, we need to understand what those terms mean for us with full respect to those we recognize as victims and survivors.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for pointing out the distinction between how we self-identify and how we label others. I absolutely agree that the sufferer gets to decide how to describe her/himself. I just hope that we can give each other the opportunity and the space to figure out those identities without imposing our own unrealistic expectations. I really appreciate your feedback and your efforts to be so attentive to these issues.
Best,
Francesca
LikeLike
Stuart M. Perkins said:
Very cool post!
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you.
LikeLike
julieallyn said:
Oh, but this is good. Such insight amidst the pain — and recognition among those of us who have experienced the loss of a parent bears testimony to the truth of your essay. Your association and comparison to Carrie was especially brilliant. Kudos. Great post!
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and for your understanding.
Francesca
LikeLike
JLynn Cameron said:
Very evoking. I thoroughly enjoy your style. My mother passed of cancer when I was just 6 years old. It would have been nice for her and I to have gotten more time, so I, too, could have written something such as this…thank you for this contribution.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I am sorry that you lost your mother at such a young age. Thank you for your willingness to read through this post and for taking the time to share a little bit about your experiences.
Best,
Francesca
LikeLike
eezna said:
It’s a very thought provoking expression. It’s amazing how the human mind creates it’s own form of rationalization and defense mechanisms. I’ve just started following your blog and I’m loving it 😊
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for following the blog. I am so pleased to know that after reading this post you wanted to read more.
Francesca
LikeLike
omariwelch33 said:
nice artwork!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you.
LikeLike
koumba1996 said:
Astonishing. Your style makes me want to read more about you. Beautiful story 🙂
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I am so glad that you liked it. Thank you.
LikeLike
thegreatindianhypocrite said:
Beautifully written. Before reading this, I too used to think referring to someone as a survivor rather than a victim really makes a difference. You gave me an entitely new perspective. Very thought-provoking. Thank you for sharing.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and for being open to new perspectives.
Francesca
LikeLike
Sakina said:
Very well written! 👍
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you.
LikeLike
shegoesby said:
A truly mesmerizing read. Your expressions, words and emotion that is contained is really something.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you. I am so pleased that you liked it.
Francesca
LikeLike
cbelwills said:
Reblogged this on K a l e i d o s c o p e.
LikeLike
generation36 said:
Amazing art-work!
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I’m glad you liked the artwork. If you are interested in knowing more about the art, you can hover over any of the images with your mouse and information about each piece should pop up. Or, you can click on the image and a separate page should open to a website with details about the work.
LikeLike
jazzyjeweljude said:
Beautifully written words on the realities of life. Thank you.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and for the compliment.
Best,
Francesca
LikeLike
tenderlytina said:
This is beautifully written
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.
Francesca
LikeLike
ricvenzdenguray said:
excellent work 🙂 nice
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you.
LikeLike
uju said:
Beautiful as well as heartbreaking. I’m sorry you had to deal with your father’s death, and I can relate to the survivor -victim role you wrote about. Society looks to people to deal with their pain, and to a large extent I think we somehow build walls around ourselves to deal with our pain. They don’t seem too visible to the world but everyday we fight our demons.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and for your thoughtful remarks.
Take care,
Francesca
LikeLike
lessecretsdekenza said:
très bien illustré et écrit
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you. It’s nice to know that you liked the artwork too.
Francesca
LikeLike
classickraze said:
Wow! This is awe-inspiring! I admire your very visually descriptive words. This is extremely well-written and touching. We all deal with our struggles very differently, and to label anyone’s means of coping is indeed just plain out wrong. I honor and respect those who act upon their feelings and decisions honestly. Those who are not afraid of what others’ may think of their decisions and actions because deep down in their souls they believe that they are true to themselves and that, that is a symbol of true self. I just created this wordpress blog and I must admit that you have inspired me greatly! I saw my writing style in your words! I hope that you will read my work and share a few words as well.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I’m so glad that you liked it. I hope you continue to feel inspired as you work on your new blog.
Francesca
LikeLiked by 1 person
classickraze said:
Thank you so much!! ❤
LikeLike
Perplexed Third Eye said:
i am sorry about your loss. i loved some pictures, the one looking on a paper on the table, and the dying owl, there was so much energy in them. i really like how open you were writing this. your entry reminded me in some nostalgic ways the death of our father, also in his 60s and of course cancer. gd luck in life.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
I’m glad that you enjoyed some of the images in this piece. Thank you for sharing some of your own experiences. I am sorry for your loss.
Take care,
Francesca
LikeLike
Sheila said:
the honesty in this post and the different perspectives you looked at pain makes it relatable
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you. It’s really good to hear that you felt you could relate to this piece.
Best,
Francesca
LikeLike
classickraze said:
Follow me plz! 😘
LikeLike
dancnmommy403 said:
Beautiful writing. Thank you for sharing.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Francesca
LikeLike
miisha671 said:
I thoroughly enjoyed this piece, felt strong association w the subject, though not the loss of a parent, but as a VICTIM of a collision caused by a drunk driver. Driving the wrong direction on the highway, at a high rate of speed, I was coming around a bend in the road, could not see him coming, until too late, my first reaction was to turn the wheel suddenly, which caused him to “t-bone” me, instead of taking the hit head on which would have been better for me, with the saftey precautions installed in vehicles these days. My instinct caused me to nearly die, I spent 6 months in trauma ward, lost my spleen, my left elbow, (forever) & have many bones replaced by implants, and screws holding me together. Brain trauma left me more positive for the rest of my life, how is that a trauma? Ha! But, it is. This is insightful, I have to deal w people who want to call me lucky, blessed, many things, but I don’t see it like that @ all! People say god has looked over me, to me that’s confusing, I don’t feel that way. I feel opposite, I don’t thank god, I thank SCIENCE!
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Your story is amazing. Thank you for your willingness to share a small piece of it. With all that you’ve been through, you have every right to identify yourself and explain your recovery however you see fit. Your gratitude to science makes perfect sense to me, especially given the alternative. If something other than science saved you, then you would have to be grateful to that other force not only for your survival, but also for the accident that caused the trauma in the first place. I am so glad that you have been able to hold onto your truth.
Take care,
Francesca
LikeLiked by 1 person
miisha671 said:
You are an inspiring woman Francesca, thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
christianliving2014 said:
I’m sorry for your loss.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you.
LikeLike
FindingLaura said:
Amazing. Loved reading the honesty and heart in this blog. Thank you for sharing.
LikeLike
Francesca Milliken said:
Thank you for reading and commenting. I’m glad that you enjoyed this post.
Best,
Francesca
LikeLiked by 1 person
FindingLaura said:
My pleasure!
LikeLike