The gift of living with cancer

Christine was first diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 39, and when it recurred at 42, her doctors told her she probably wouldn’t survive. Now, at 80, she’s lived with cancer for more than half her life.

“When I didn’t die after all the chemo and radiation, I decided to get to know myself better and to honor all my feelings, even the ones like anger and sadness,” she says. “Cancer was so horrible that my feelings were finally justified. When I went inside myself, I found a really beautiful person, a person I could love, my true self. That’s the gift cancer gave me.”

Christine is a member of a healing circle called “Dying without the elephant.” Although she participates in other support groups, she says, “The elephant circle is my favorite. There, I talk freely about what I’m going through. My love for the people in the group is stronger than the fear of my own death. It makes me feel closer to friends outside the group and gives me courage.”

When Christine was 21, her mother died of pancreatic cancer, and no one acknowledged the truth of her diagnosis, including her doctor. “We all knew she was dying, but no one would talk about it,” Christine says. “I don’t want my children to go through what I went through with my mother.”

Christine says that many people are unable to lean into the reality that she’s dying and are unwilling to accept her own acceptance of it.

“The ones who say, ‘You’re going to be OK’ can’t think about their own death, so they can’t think about mine,” she says. “I don’t want to hurt someone with my diagnosis, but at the same time, I don’t want to hide it.

“My goal is to be authentically who I am,” Christine continues. “I just want to have faith that my true self can handle anything. If I can be in my true self and be authentically who I am and what I’m meant to be — a loving person, caring about myself — if I can stay in that space, then I can be around people who are scared and maybe help them. The last day of my life is still going to have meaning. There’s still something I’m going to learn, even at the end.”

In the second half of her life, Christine looks for opportunities to share her story and feelings.

“It brings me joy,” she says, and “I think it might help people who are struggling with the same journey.”