Overcoming Survivor's Guilt - Cancer Crusade Affirmation

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all?

~William Shakespeare~

King Lear, V:iii

The lovely young woman pictured above was one of my best friends. Her name was Juanita. The Spanish name is the feminine form of "Juan" which means "God is gracious." After her death from cancer at age 34, I doubted very much and for quite a long time that God was gracious, since my dictionary defines that word as "displaying divine grace, mercy, or compassion."

There had been other losses in my life. The worst was that of my own brilliant, sweet and handsome brother - my only sibling - who also died at the age of 34. There was the young woman with whom I taught who went to bed one night, seemingly the picture of health, and never awakened. And there was the infant son of a neighbor who picked up a nasty virus that took his tiny life in a matter of a few days.

But it was Juanita's death that caused me to experience "survivor's guilt" for the first time, probably because we had had similar diagnoses. Why had cancer taken her and not me? I almost laughed when I heard people say that "life isn't fair" because "fair" is such a wimp of a word to use when taking in the whole of life and death and our poor attempts to find some meaning in all of it. After all, as Johnny Carson once said, "If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead."

In the years following Juanita's death, there was much talk about "survivor's guilt" and much material available on the subject because of events in the news. Most of us felt a bit of its sting when a riding accident left Christopher Reeve's "Superman"" body broken and paralyzed; when a car carrying Princess Diana smashed into the wall of a tunnel in Paris; when an ill-fated flight took the life of John F. Kennedy, Jr. and his wife and sister- in-law; when the unthinkable, the unspeakable happened on 9/11 and the walls of our last illusions came tumbling down, finally and forever.

But for all the material I have come across in the years since Juanita's death, all the books published on the subject of "survivor's guilt," all the television talk show interviews with experts, I find that I return time and again to the most profoundly comforting book I have ever read. When Bad Things Happen to Good People, by Harold S. Kushner, is a small volume, just over 150 pages, easily read in a few hours. I encourage you to purchase a copy, read it and keep it close so that you can read it again and again, anytime you find yourself going to that life-isn't- fair place and wondering why you are still here when someone you loved and cherished is not.

I also encourage you to celebrate the one you have lost and to keep the flame of his or her life shining brightly by giving something good and beautiful to the world with your own life. It doesn't have to be big, but it has to come from a big place in your heart. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it must be generous of spirit.

I won't even begin to list the possibilities because they would be my ideas and not yours, and because once I started to list them, I would never be able to stop. You start. You think. You dream. You imagine. You leave a legacy.

Do it in memory of the loved one you have lost. And do it so that, when you are gone, the world will be twice blessed by your having been a part of it.

For everything there is a season,

And a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant,

and a time to pluck up what is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to throw away stones,

and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace,

And a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to throw away;

A time to tear, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate,

A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

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Roger and Kathy Cawthon

The Cancer Crusade

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email: cawthons@thecancercrusade.com

web: http://www.thecancercrusade.com