Cancer Didn't Make me a Better Person.

It didn't make me nicer.
It didn't make me suddenly brave.

And if you were to ask me if there were positive lessons, if the universe were sending me a message, I might:
a) Give the finger.
b) Laugh maniacally (cue plastic wind-up teeth).
c) Drive over a rodent quickly.

Which is to say that no, there are no messages. The positive lessons are mostly in your head.

Is this bad? Dear reader, the danger in this thinking is the implicit blame: if there is a message, then somehow you were "selected" to receive it. If there is a lesson, you must be The Student Who Hears. But these are fallacies: cancer is a random selector. It is secular, it is true science. Hear me: You are not special for having had it. This is not so terrible. For me, it was a relief.

And the last thing any patient wants is more health advice, more despair. Walk very gently before you pile any more "shoulds" on the cancer patient's list. She or he has had enough already.

Cancer didn't make me more spiritual. If anything, I'm a bit more petty, a bit more remembering. I look at swimsuit catalogues and envy two-breasted women. They are like birds to me now, elusive, robin red-breasted winged creatures, flitting from branch to branch in a world where it is always spring.

Cancer didn't make me kinder. But it did make me more real. Authentic. Mortality's door, one that before was in a room in my life's attic, is my front entrance now, and it is open and a strong wind is blowing. I walk through this door every day. It tells me not to hurry, but to hear.

And cancer never made me a warrior. It made me face choices and proceed. It made me ill, made the daylight dim, made me weep. These are not the stances of a soldier. They are the stances of suffering, and I do not wallow in them. But I will tell the truth.

What did cancer do for you? Did it change you?