From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers
stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry
appeared in January 2012.
Like most of
you, I recognized this blog title as the name of an old book – maybe an old war
movie.
I’d assumed it
was about World War II, I suppose because that’s the war I’m “familiar” with.
It’s neither and
it fits even better my current state of mind.
The main
characters of the book are German boys sent to the Western Front – the leading
edge of the German invasion into France and a place where the war essentially
“stopped”. From its closest approach to Paris in September of 1914 to the
position the Allies pushed them back to 1916 and where the war stagnated,
little of import happened there. That is the thrust of the book. From the
ground, when you are young and the horrors of war can’t possibly match anything
you’ve ever seen, “nothing happens”.
The problem is
that while nothing appears to change on the Front, nothing also changes back
home. When you return home, while everyone is glad to see you and everything is
just as you left it – you are no longer the same person who went to war. You
have seen things you can’t even explain to those who remained behind.
In the book, ALL
QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, the main character, Paul Bäumer is a soldier who—urged
on by his school teacher—joined the German army shortly after the war
began, and who is all of nineteen years old. Some time later, Paul visits on
leave to his home which highlights the cost of the war on his psyche. The town
has not changed since he went off to war; however, he finds that he does ‘not
belong here anymore, it is a foreign world.’ He feels disconnected from most of
the townspeople…not understanding ‘that a man cannot talk of such things.’”
I can understand
something of that feeling.
While the breast
cancer threat has disappeared, we no longer have to go to chemotherapy sessions
and the imminence of the cancer has seemingly faded; it’s not gone from my
mind. I am still worried. I still wonder. When I rub my wife’s head, touching
the soft hairs that have grown back in the months since chemo ended, everything
seems so peaceful.
Everything seems
“over”.
But it’s not and
I can’t explain that it’s NOT over to people who only ask occasionally now,
“How’s your wife?” Some of it is that I don’t have the time to talk about my
fears of MBC or the long-term effects of the estrogen-blocking drug she has to
take. Some of it is that I don’t want people to think I’m whining and say, “Oh,
get over it! She’s fine now! The drama’s over!”
Some of it is that
while the drama isn’t on stage any more under the bright lights and makeup, it
continues in the body. It continues in my mind. It makes me say things like,
“Liz is three-and-a-half-months cancer-free!” and smile and high five people.
It makes me feel
things like I do “not belong here anymore, it is a foreign world...a man cannot
talk of such things.” I suppose I’m also afraid that I’m “weird” in that I’m
not “over it”; or that someone might just look at me and say, “Man! Get over
it!”
I’m pretty sure
now, nearly a year after the initial diagnosis, that I will never “get over
it.”
[Update: Four
years later, and I’m still not “over it”, though all the hoopla has faded. We
live in this New Normal life.]
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