I Don’t Fear Dying, I Fear Missing Out
I think about death a lot, as in my own. I think every cancer patient at one point or another wonders, “Is this going to kill me?” It doesn’t matter if your prognosis rate is 10% or 90%, there’s always the “what if?”. But the more I think about death it dawns on me that it’s not actual death I fear — it’s missing out on life. I watched my father die for eight long years, I grieve for all the life he missed. And now I wonder, will that be me?
Experiencing death itself is not scary to me. I do not fear the moment I take my last breath — though I do fear a long and painful death — I fear the knowledge that I won’t be there to love my husband into his 30s, to hug my mom, I won’t know what kind of person my niece grows up to be, I won’t see how far my incredible friends go in their lives, and I’ll never get to go see Switzerland after all. It’s all the living that I would miss out on that I fear the most. You know us millennials — we love FOMO.
After all, if I were to die I would want my husband to go on to live a happy and wonderful life — but that inevitably means finding a new love, with a new woman, and even having kids. He’ll suddenly have the family I can no longer give him (no uterus, thanks cancer). I envision future holidays without me. A tear shed, a moment of silence and then life must move on. The turkey will be carved and everyone’s gotta eat. This thought of the world moving on without me, brings me immense pain (probably due to my ego). In fact, I’ve had to push these dark visions out of my mind because at some point it’s simply masochistic to dwell on horrific hypotheticals. But these are the fears that come along with cancer. At least for me they are. I am not done living yet — I’m only 35.
A woman from the UK with my same cancer contacted me a few weeks ago to ask how I was and how treatment was going. We chatted a bit and then she told me she was 69. At first, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do treatment, but decided to go for it because she wasn’t done living yet. It dawned on me that no matter what age we are — 30s or late 60s — we don’t want a premature death sentence. We all feel like we have unfinished business here, whether it’s finding a great love or watching grandchildren blossom, there’s a desire to live. And yet, during this time in which I have been NED (no evidence of disease) I find myself bored and cranky. I’m not exactly zenning my way through this and appreciating every moment as I should be. Part of this (or most of this) is due to Covid. I am basically trapped in my house since I am immunocompromised. I feel as if time is slipping through my fingers. These wonderful months — in which I get to live without cancer — are being crushed by the weight of a global pandemic. I fear that by the time the world opens up again, my cancer will come roaring back. This might be my greatest fear of all. That I wasted time. That I could have been bucketlisting my way around the world were it not for a deadly pandemic. (Some of my best friends have not even been able to see me since 2019.) Then I feel guilty for thinking that way — that I should remain optimistic, that there’s no rush because I’m not going to die. I do believe in the power of positive thinking and 90% of the time I am super confident that I can beat this cancer. That I ALREADY beat this cancer. My life is not over yet, I will break out of this mental prison and see the world with new eyes. More appreciative eyes. Which begs the question, why not start now?
So I want to impart this one piece of advice I’ve gleaned while ruminating on my own mortality. Whether you’re 30 or 60, chances are you’d like to live to see tomorrow. Ask yourself, what would you like to do? How would you like to be remembered? I’ve done things I’m not proud of, we all have. Whether it was our actions in a relationship or how we treated a stranger, none of us are perfect. If you were to get a cancer diagnosis tomorrow what would you do differently? Whatever your answer is, think about starting now. Because whether it’s cancer or a pandemic, we don’t know what the world has in store for us so be thankful for the time you have — even if that time is mainly spent around the kitchen table with your mom drinking coffee for the 400th day in a row (Hi mom). After all, being bored is better than being dead :)
Related Links:
