If We Were Having Coffee… 4th June


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If we were having coffee, I would thank you for taking the time to meet me here over a cup of coffee.  I hope you had a relaxed weekend and the week ahead is looking great for you.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that after blogging every day all through April, I wanted to give myself a break for a few days in May. But a well deserved week long break extended to a month. No, I was not lazing around but I got sucked into a giant chaotic tornado. Some aspects of this chaos were amazing, some of it were challenging and a part of the chaos was depressing and utterly frustrating. Guess that’s what life is all about. It isn’t always a smooth sailing but we have to readjust our sails and move ahead.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I lost a colleague last week. She had cancer. She was in her early 50s and was so vivacious and charming. Her death truly saddened me. As you can see that I haven’t mentioned here that ‘she had lost her battle with cancer’. There’s a reason behind it.

When I shared this sad news with my friend in these very words, her question made me re-think. She asked me, “Did she not try hard enough?” I said, “She did. She was strong and faced all the pains and struggles with a smile, in fact her courage was truly awe-inspiring. She was a wellness instructor and worked despite the challenges and helped people heal and de-stress.” And as I said that, I realized how wrong I was.

As we got talking, I figured that when we say someone has ‘lost her battle with cancer’, we are actually demeaning them as well as their family. Dying from cancer does not make someone a loser.

Using the terms like battle or war with reference to cancer implies that if a patient fights hard enough, and/or long enough, he or she will be able to make their tumor go away and win the war.  We know that the journey with cancer is difficult and tumultuous which requires a lot of patience, courage and tolerance. In the course of this journey, if cancer patient dies, his dying should not be viewed as being defeated.

When you die, it does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live. – Stuart Scott

Thank you A for making me realize that I should remember my colleague as victor in life and not a loser in death. And that we should stop letting the cancer appear to be the winner. What do you think about this?

If we were having coffee, what would you talk about? Please share a snippet of your day/life with me below in the comments!

If we were having coffee, I’d thank you for joining me here today and hope we meet soon again. Until then…

Linking this to #MondayMusings