I
hate cancer. It touches everyone, even if it’s only on the hem of a dress or
two fingers touching by happenstance. I try to think of why it was created. Was
it created? Maybe it’s just always been a thing. Maybe the Egyptians suffered
from it, too. I can see a brown man with a headdress sending a note into
work—probably some job related to the pyramids—describing how his throat has
this large lump in it that won’t go down, or maybe how his skin, since the
cartoon pictures I’ve seen of ancient Egypt always look dreadfully sunny,
developed multiple little moles that look abnormal and have started making him
nauseous. Would his boss be like, “Oh, sounds like cancer…”, or would he force
the sick man to come into work anyway?
Nowadays
no one seems to be forced to go into work because of cancer. Forced into
therapy sessions, waiting rooms, last ditch attempts of joy at carnivals, but
not work. It’s as if you get cancer and suddenly you have all this time in the
world to do exactly nothing before you prematurely die, or die a little later
than expected, but still meet the same fate as the former. Everyone’s so
consumed with rushing and running around and doing nonsensical tasks that
cancer patients would consider a luxury. Sometimes I feel like I took it all
for granted. I think everyone takes it for granted, actually. Rushing around, I
mean. We get to go to school and work with real hair, and eat lunch without
tasting metal. Yeah, I’m pretty sure we’ve taken that stuff pretty selfishly,
as if we deserve a happy, easy life. But then again, maybe everyone’s just a
cancer patient waiting to happen, so this nonsensical busy-bodying is a
pre-given gift for our future time spent in hospital beds and chemotherapy.
My
dad’s had cancer twice now. Once was in an unsavory place that is probably best
not discussed, not because I care personally, but because he might be
embarrassed. Anyway, now you probably know what kind of cancer he had and I
went and ruined my whole plan of concealing the last ounce of dignity that part
of his body had. At least I can report that the second place he had cancer was
all over—on his skin.
My
dad used to golf a lot. Sometimes every day, all day. He’d always been that
way. But I guess the sun got to him. The sun’s weird that way. It’s always
referenced as being such a healthy, happy thing, then one day we all find out
we have skin cancer and there was nothing we could have done except sat inside
all day or continually reapplied suntan lotion every fifteen minutes. That’s
not fair. But I guess none of this cancer stuff is.
So
anyways, my dad got cancer, twice, and he survived, but he’s different now. He
doesn’t talk as much and he never golfs now. He was the first person I told
about my own cancer. Well, I mean, he was in the doctor’s office too, so
technically he was indirectly the first person the doctor told I had cancer to. I guess we share cancer now. It’s kind
of our thing. Just me, my dad, and all these silly cancer patients I go to
support group with.
Today
a new girl’s supposed to come. I think her name is Hazel. I can remember that
because my eyes are hazel, so in a vain way, I’ll always be able to remember
who she is. I kind of think we’ll be the same in a lot of ways. Even if we don’t
become friends, I can sense her representing a part of me, of all the rest of us
dying kids, who never got to live in a bigger way.
I’m trying not to
make this a race—seeing who dies first. It’ll probably be me. I’ve been here
longer and have stopped making an attempt at friendships. Hopefully she’ll do
something I never had the time to do. Hopefully she’ll realize sooner than I
did that none of this is our fault. Or maybe it is. Maybe she’ll figure that
out for all of us.
[The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Published 2012 by Dutton Books.]
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