I know it’s only Tuesday, but I feel fairly safe saying it’s this. The piece is about support groups for children whose parents have cancer. But the truths that Mary Elizabeth Williams extracts are profound. That culturally, we fear death, when really there’s power in acknowledging it. That for all of us, but especially for children, in situations that are socially cast as tragic or abnormal, there is power in a community of your peers — even if the very fact of that community means there will be pain and loss. That as MEW writes, in a way that universalizes the lessons she and her girls have learned:
My girls have learned in this past year that we can talk or not talk and we can cry sometimes and rage and dance and laugh, and it’s all OK. And they’ve discovered, in the most difficult and helpless of situations, that they have a measure of power — the power to be there for somebody else.
I didn’t put this family in the path of death. I put us in the paths of Lisa and Ted and Mamie and Julia. And we made a choice to get tangled up with them, to love them and to let them love us. To sit in beanbag chairs and eat popcorn and paint pictures together and drag ourselves to Queens for funerals and miss them when they’re gone. To take the risk of being hurt, because what the hell else are we here for? What else is there in life but to show up for each other, week in and week out, whether we’re 8 or 80? I came to that club because I knew my kids needed to get support. And they have received it, beyond all expectations. But I never dreamed how much they would also wind up giving. I never imagined how much sorrow they and their friends would face, or how beautifully they would face it together.
Aaaaand yes I am sitting home alone on a Tuesday night bawling on my couch. WHAT.
First! …to point out that title’s borked.
(Also, not reading this article because I do not wish to bawl my face off, but thanks for posting.)
It’s a beautiful and honest article. I am glad you linked to it. Ms. Williams did not, in my judgment, put her family “in the path of death.” She put them in the path of life. Real, honest life – where people die and the rest of us have to do on, somehow.
“GO on.” Sheesh.
I wish I had someplace like this when my mom was going through cancer… I was in the 5th grade when she was undergoing treatment, and I always felt weird that I didn’t react like the adults expected me to. I wasn’t crying all the time, or constantly worried about death or anything like that. I was still a normal kid, just with a lot on my mind. In my adult life I’ve met other people who dealt with a parent’s cancer at a young age, and we’ve connected quickly in a way I can’t quite describe. It’s not like we sit around talking about cancer all the time, but we are able to joke about it, and be honest about past experiences without letting those experiences completely define us. Kudos to Ms. Williams for reaching out and sticking with this group!
This really spoke to me:
That is so true I can’t even.