Meet Joe Black. You know Joe Black from the movie. You love Joe Black for his charm, his charisma, his signature Brad Pitt good looks. You praise Joe Black for the guidance he gave Hopkins, how he led him through life-changing perspective as he came to accept his fate and for the belief he gave us in true love, with Hopkins’ screen daughter.
Joe Black, for me, is something more than all of those things. It’s a story that touched my heart with indelible ink, in the most unexpected fashion. A story that saddened me and filled me with hope, but mostly saddened me with its bittersweet. A story that stayed with me, that represented a future that faces us all and a fear for the fact that is does. A story of death and an end, things I just never gave time to imagine possible. Things I inwardly thought, or hoped, might just skip me by.
Just as Joe Black brought the awareness of a weak heart to Hopkins, my Joe Black brought Cancer to my dad.
Cancer, the Big C. C for control, confusion and choking.
Cancer, the Big C. C for control, confusion and choking.
I’m like most little girls who have the heart of their daddy, from the day they are born - regardless of my growing years, I'm as protective of he as he is of me. My dad is age-agnostic, he knows no troubles and he is the only man that always has the answers and whose answer I trust and live to.
Joe Black brought my life to a standstill. And that New Year resolution to blog, that was the least of my problems. I had just landed in Manila and checked in to the most luxurious upgrade suite in the Shangri-La and a bath tub that overlooked the lights of the city. Blogging that, on this occasion, couldn’t have been further from my mind.
8 hour gap in time zone, thousands of miles from home, laden with jet lag and in need of a shower, I got the phone-call. My dad. My dad with Cancer. Silence.
Silence was shock. Shock that quickly became sadness and immediately became panic. My dad can’t have Cancer – he doesn’t get sick, I’m too far away, for one thing. If my dad is going to get Cancer, then it has to be when I am there, so I can fix it. And what is he thinking? What if he is scared, or sad, or angry, or in pain? He can’t be any of those things until I am there to fix those, too. I’m the fixer. I can fix this, right?
But Cancer was in control in this game and me, for all my fixing, I was just an onlooker who is powerless. I needed a plan B.
And so it unravels – biopsies, results, consultants, hormone injections, appointments, radiotherapy, hot sweats, tiredness, exhaustion, 37 one-hundred mile round-trips for treatments. 3700 miles of radiotherapy, some in silence, others with smile but never a tear. My dad, he was taking on Joe Black like a superhero.
My superhero powers, however, were dwindling. We all hear about Cancer, walk for Cancer, have coffee mornings for Cancer. It saddens us but, until that moment it's right on your doorstep, you don't truly understand it.
A daddy’s girl knows what is really behind the vest, behind the brave smiles and behind the brave words of tolerance. That’s where I struggled most in this battle. Knowing that my dad would have moments alone of fear and worry and sadness, knowing that every 100 mile trip was just another step that we had to take but, in reality, we had no idea what would happen after the 3700 miles completed.
A daddy’s girl knows what is really behind the vest, behind the brave smiles and behind the brave words of tolerance. That’s where I struggled most in this battle. Knowing that my dad would have moments alone of fear and worry and sadness, knowing that every 100 mile trip was just another step that we had to take but, in reality, we had no idea what would happen after the 3700 miles completed.
But this time, we beat Joe Black. We beat Cancer. We think. We hope.
I say hope, because, from the day that Joe Black appears, he never really goes away.
The after effects of radio and chemo and all the medication that is forced through the bodies of our loved ones keeps stripping their energy and should for weeks after you think you have escaped. And every new pain or qualm or minor twinge aches with paranoia that it is something bigger than it feels.
The after effects of Cancer hurts us all. My daddy. My mummy. My sisters. Friends, family, and every other person you quickly hear about that has won and lost the same battle. Cancer is there forever. It changes you forever. It never goes away.
So my Plan B? A little bit of it is this blog. It's taken me time to really process my thoughts, so sharing them makes me feel a little vulnerable.
My experience, in words and picture free. My hurt, my pain and futile hope, so that any one of the many other people may have to deal with Cancer in the life of a loved one can know that its ok to need help, just as much as the patient does.
My plan B is perspective and a reality check on what really matters most in my life.
My plan B is to make sure I tell the people I love, every single day, that I do love them.
My plan B is to appreciate the people and things that give me true happiness and deprioritise the ‘stuff’ that I thought did.
My plan B is a phone call, regardless of where I am in the world, to my daddy to make sure he is good.
The rest of the plan is still being written. But for now, Joe Black is busy elsewhere. When our time comes to see him, we will be ready with a basketful of the true happiness that he will never taken away.
'Til next time, Pandora
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