Survivor's Guilt

This coming January will mark ten years since I first heard the words CANCER associated with my life. I have never felt like this cancer thing has defined who I am. It has been more something I have had to deal with along with other things life throws at you. I have had three separate encounters with it, in different forms. I dealt with it each time and simply kept living. Maybe cancer doesn't mean death for all its victims. Maybe medical science has found good ways to prolong the lives of some like me, or perhaps finding the cancer before it has had a chance to do the most damage... I don't know why I have survived. I ask myself that question a lot. Out of curiosity and of course, out of guilt.

I don't expect answers, especially to questions that are sort of unfair to begin with. After all, we are all dying and it's just a matter of when and where and how. But guilt is a little tricky. It plays with your mind and your heart, and is basically useless, but all the same is real.

I look out at family and friends who have lost family and friends to cancer and have feelings of survivors guilt. Their lives were much more relevant than my own, I think, when I consider the way they lived their lives, the fact that they had children (which I do not have), their shared experiences with loved ones, the way they made the world a better place, and how deeply needed they were and I honestly do not understand why it had to be that this disease took their lives and allows me to keep living.

I don't believe in a supreme being, so I tend to shake my head when people who survive cancer or some other near death experience claim that they think god must have intervened in their case because it wasn't their time, or because god must have been looking out for them, or they still had important tasks to finish here on earth. Well, what does that mean for those that didn't survive? For those that suffer and die? I keep surviving this disease but that doesn't mean I feel somehow privileged or that it means something more than simply not dying.I don't even feel lucky... even thinking that implies that others have bad luck.

 So, I don't tend to look for answers in religion because of the inherent inconsistencies and irrationalities. I would find more answers in science, but I'm not smart enough to do that either. Maybe one day, if the human species keeps surviving and evolving, we'll find answers to some of the medical questions, which would possibly lead to less and less people having to deal with cancer, but I don't think we'll ever survive long enough to dampen the burdens of guilt. I have no doubt however that most cancer victims would give anything to get their lives back and be burdened with guilt rather than with their ultimate fate.

If possible, would I trade places with one of those people I know who has died of cancer? Knowing how much their absence continues to hurt those that outlived them? In a heart beat. But of course, it's easy to answer questions that have no basis in reality. I don't believe in magic either.

Survival is only a temporary fix for that inevitable ending we all face. A matter of time. I guess I have no choice but to suck it up and keep living... for now anyway ;)