I’ve now sat with my Mother through several of her chemo therapies and have walked away with one major takeaway.
Cancer Doesn’t Care. It doesn’t care about race. It doesn’t care about religion. And it damn sure doesn’t care about your age. Cancer doesn’t care about money. It doesn’t care about where you are from. And it could care less about your gender, sexuality or whatever the hell you identify as. Cancer is an equal opportunity disease and doesn’t care to discriminate.
Cancer didn’t care that my mother was a woman. It didn’t care that she was African American or a devout Christian. It didn’t even care that it had already visited her once back in 2000. To Cancer my Mother is just another host like the older white lady that was sitting across from us, the younger Asian man sitting to the right of us, and the gay guy sitting to the left of us in the treatment room. Cancer looks past all our differences and puts people of all walks of life through the same hell.
Every time I walk into the chemo center with my Mom I tip my hat to Cancer. I hate to admit it but I do have a certain level of respect for Cancer. Why? Because, it does something on a daily basis that I struggle to do. It sees everyone as equals. Cancer is estimated to be diagnosed 1,688,780 times in the U.S. alone in 2017. You don’t get numbers like that by being discriminatory. Cancer simply wants to affect as many people in the world as it possibly can and so it doesn’t waste time caring about race, color, creed, religion, sexuality, gender, or any other way we separate ourselves.
If Cancer doesn’t care why do I? My Mother’s diagnosis and treatment has forced me to ask myself why am I sometimes overly concerned with things that Cancer can overlook?Why can’t I see and treat everyone equally like Cancer? Aren’t I better than a cold hearted killer? I would like to think so but if I’m honest with myself I guess not.
PeaceofAB 