When People Refuse To Talk About Death

As humans, we don't want to think about the worst of things. We try to live our lives, taking each day and making the best of everything. We try to focus so much on our day to day lives, even the littlest things because that's all we know how to do. We paint a beautiful masterpiece to escape to so we don't have to accept the inevitable, which is death.

I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of twenty three and it was the first time in my life that I was actually faced with the reality that I'm not invincible and that some day I will die.  I felt as if I was on the brink of death, staring it in the face. Death was standing before me at such a young age, and I felt the anger, the darkness in my heart coming to the surface. I spent so many nights being angry at the world, trying to find the meaning of life. I was a twenty three year old woman with a broken spirit and an undeserving diagnosis I couldn't seem to accept.  I couldn't accept the fact that I was being thrust into a club that I didn't ask to join.

I spent so much wasted time looking at my life and asking myself, why this happened to me.  Until I realized I'm no different than anyone else. I'm not exempt to the deadly poison that calls itself cancer. She's a bitch, and no amount of money, privilege or goodness makes you immune to it. She chooses her victims wisely, and there's nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is decide whether you are going to fight or give up. I chose to fight, but even I can't fight what is inevitable.

We are all going to die someday. That's a fact. There's no way around it. It's not some delusion or fantasy that we can escape from, it's just how things are. We are all living on borrowed time, just some of us more than others.  I find that so many people are running from the reality rather than just accepting defeat and facing the reality that this is life. We are born to die, and there's no way around that.

The people around me have maintained this positivity that nothing tragic is going to happen. I praise them for being able to keep the positivity knowing all of the risks, and the words that the doctors have spoken over the last several weeks. I appreciate the positivity, envy it even, but I'm realist who has to prepare for the worst to happen. I see the people around me shutting themselves off to even the simple idea that I won't survive or outlive my illness. It kills me inside how they've become so blind to the reality that cancer kills, even if we beg it not to.

I once read this story about a girl named Carley Allison.  She had been diagnosed with a cancer that was extremely rare that only one in a billion. She was only the seventh person ever to have been diagnosed with it. She had this optimistic outlook on everything that you don't see often in cancer patients.  I admired her, but even with the utmost positivity in the end, she lost her battle, but she left a legacy behind, and people know her name.  My point to mentioning her is just that no one knows what is going to happen, we just have  to accept whatever is thrown at us, no matter how much it hurts.

I find myself with feelings of irritation when I am attempting to pour my feelings out to those close to me and their only response is that I'm going to be just fine. The thing that frustrates me the most is that I have some of the best doctors in the world, and even they aren't completely optimistic that I'll live for another ten years. Now, I'm not insinuating that they think I'm going to die, but they're medical professionalists along with realist and they, along with myself know that we have to be prepared for what's inevitable.

I don't wish for people to just give up on me and assume the harsh possibility that the poison, the cancer within my body is just going to paralyze me until my last breath. I only wish for them to accept the reality of the chances of death that cancer has brought to my life. All the positivity in the world won't save my life if death is what is meant to be. I only wish that the people around me could talk about that very thing.  Acceptance is a very hard thing to face, especially in the face of a terminal illness.  I only wish that people would stop being so blind to the fact that I am sick and thousands, maybe even millions of people have died from the very thing that runs through my veins.

Death is inevitable,and with whatever time I have, I only wish to live this very life to the fullest. I refuse to let the cancer stop me from living, but I also refuse to let it blind me to the possibility that these could be my very last days.