Reflections with Neycha:
Your One Freaking Precious Life:
The Battle Cry Behind Pink Lines

“The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all the ambiguity. 

No matter what happens, whether the cancer never flares up again

or whether you die, the important thing is that

the days that you have had, 

you will have lived.” 

~ Gilda Radner

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I have been guilty on multiple occasions of rallying from deep inside me the spirit of G.I. Jane, Wonder Woman, Kobe Bryant, Ali or any other iconic bad-ass to help me face whatever battles I’ve perceived to be at hand.  There have been many. Besides my own health crises, I even armored up, soldier-ready, when I learned that my grandmother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer as if I could fight her battle for her.  Her eventual dying, from pancreatic cancer instead, was certainly not for lack of “Marine-effort” on my part to try to defeat the undefeatable.  Alas, is not death what makes us bowing witnesses, and many times before we face our own?  

 

It is with this humbling acknowledgement that I move thoughtfully into October when the “Think Pink” ribbon campaigns will crowd the billboards, department store window-dressings, television commercials and social networking - all designed to intentionally arrest our attention and bring to bear respectful consideration for all those we know who’ve been affected by breast cancer.  After all, with over 3 million women battling the disease today, everywhere you turn someone is confronting the crushing aftermath of being diagnosed. Despite the celebrated advances of the breast cancer movement, some of those 3 million women will not “beat” the disease.  They will die.

 

Before then, many will armor up as I before, and they will scream to cancer the battle cry made famous in boxing rings around the world, “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble!”.  They will educate themselves on all the latest treatments, advanced technologies, and alternative approaches.  Some will choose to make radical dietary changes, while many others will begin experimental trials, radiation and/or chemotherapy.  

 

However, if we’re blatantly honest about it, others will not choose this course at all. They will not prepare for war, deeming cancer the enemy that must be defeated. They will not pledge allegiance to the combat metaphor that dominates western consciousness, and in many ways the breast cancer movement too. Instead, they will adapt the mindset of Kriss Carr, author of Crazy Sexy Cancer who writes in her book, “as my journey progressed, I realized that healing is about truly living rather than fighting.”   

 

Over the years, I’ve known intimately at least four women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. Another dozen if you count associates. Some of these women chose early on to stage a fierce war against breast cancer. Others decided instead to focus all of their attention and intention on living more passionately.  I consider each side equally bad-ass and yet death came to both.  This sobering reality catapults us into the heart of our complex feelings about loss, endings and the ultimate yielding to death.  Is this not what breast cancer or any diagnosis of a potentially terminal illness forces one to consider - not just how you want to die, but how do you want to live?

 

My grandmother’s flat out refusal to hold on to a deeply compromised quality of life just because we didn’t want to let her go forced me to realize there is a subtle difference between giving up and surrender. One is to close off to all options, the other opens us to the miraculous, infinite possibilities just beyond our control.  Granny’s death and each of the women I’ve known since who died with breast cancer have helped me to pry myself open just a little bit more each time.  Their battles have become my barometer for sensing where to direct my own warrior energy.  These days I conjure the iconic bad-ass to push me to love harder, create magic, live more audaciously and ride the wheels all the way off this one freaking, precious life I’ve been gifted.  Then say goodbye, with grace.

 

This is my hope for us all.