cancer – Don't Gel Too Soon

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Cancer, Courage and Rage

Cancer has taken so many people I’ve loved and admired. This new interview with two hugely admired and much-loved celebrities reminded me of how deeply it affects us all . We know, in our heads, that the presence of beauty, courage, fame and an amazing marriage and family can’t keep the monster at bay. Neither can being the most respected broadcast journalist of the past 30 years; Tom Brokaw had cancer too. So did my husband, by the way. Thankfully, they are still with us. But it’s a roll of the dice, not fame or fortune, or even education, that’s made it so.

So why are we not all enraged? Why do we refuse to keep this plague at (or at least near) the top of our agenda? We face so much right now: attacks on women, racial tension, income inequality, climate change, declining education systems and infrastructure – fill in your own particular blank. But no matter how we feel about any of these issues, we all grieve for those we’ve lost to cancer; we all long for their presence in our lives and know that it is just a lack of knowledge that took them from us.

No family is untouched; the lucky ones face it among older members but so many lose loved ones — family and friends, well before they’ve seen their children grow up, or get married or find their way in the world and before they’ve exhausted the gifts that brought so much to all of us. I’ve been thinking about them a great deal recently, and have felt, for some time, a need to honor them once again here. Many died before there was an Internet but I’ve added links where I could.

We were young journalists together:

Margot Adler

Mary Halleron

Mark Harrington

Joan Shorenstein

Teachers, mentors, friends:

Maggie Morton

The Dearest:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg; This Is Sad

I'm not a Supreme Court junkie any more, but I think it's pretty tough not to be an admirer of Justice Ginsburg. Hearing today that she has pancreatic cancer is very sad; her charm, grace and humor make her a special icon on the court and off. A great intellect and long-time advocate for civil liberties, women's and reproductive rights, she is a respected Associate Justice who is also looked upon fondly by most who know her.
We can only hope that, like Steve Jobs, she's able to get the kind of care that will give her several more years, which would benefit not only those who love her, but also the rest of us.

MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

This is the logo from a blog called Mothers with Cancer. (We are twenty (or so) moms
fighting cancer. Some of us have been in remission for years; others
are newly diagnosed, or battling a new recurrence. All of us have
something to say.) I’ve spent much of the past week reading personal and group cancer blogs for a project and I’ve been near tears for most of that time. The sadness, the courage, the resilience in the face of multiple recurrences, the joy in small moments – there’s only so much of it you can read before you start to crumble. Then you tell yourself that they’re living what you’re reading, and, out of respect, you force yourself to go on.

In 1998 there was a big cancer March on Washington. I was around DC for much of it; because of my husband’s long-time work on prostate cancer advocacy I’ve been around cancer advocates and survivors for years. But none of that, and none of them – brought truth to the words "you’ve got cancer" the way these bloggers do, as their realities become ours. I’ve come to believe that we owe them our attention – that, as Willie Loman‘s wife Linda said: "Attention must be paid." And so it must

You’ll find many of a legion of cancer bloggers on Mothers with Cancer and many more on their individual blog rolls. I urge you to visit their sites and leave a message. They may not know us, but through their honesty — and their pain — we know them. And we can’t leave them sitting out here alone. Listen:

The truth is, I am scared. I am trying to reassure myself with the fact
that I have been feeling pretty good, that I have been biking and
running But I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was feeling the
healthiest and most fit that I had in years. And I was diagnosed with
liver mets three weeks after I returned to work, at a time when I was
feeling strong, energetic and (so I thought) on the road to reclaiming
my life from cancer. Not Just About Cancer

Continue reading MOTHERS WITH CANCER: SOME OF THE BRAVEST WOMEN ON THE PLANET

SAD NEWS; SENATOR TED KENNEDY

Catherine Morgan, star of stage, screen, (well not really, but she should be) and (yes this is true) blogs including Political Voices of Women, has sought posts on the news that Senator Edward Kennedy, seen here with Senator Barack Obama, whom he endorsed, is suffering from a malignant brain tumor. It really is a sad thing. People make jokes about the Senator, some of them really cruel, as I discovered while searching for images for this post. And he’s made mistakes, including those surrounding the tragic events at Chappaquiddick.

But as a great speaker and legislator, he’s used his talents to be a champion of the “downtrodden” and many of the rest of us, for over 40 years. Coal miners, civil rights advocates, children who need better schools, American who need access to health care, soldiers in Iraq and veterans of every war and dozens of other causes; he’s been a mainstay of support for them all, often when not too many people were willing to be.

Since he lost his two brothers, President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, to assassins, he’s also been the protector of their children: JFK’s two, John and Caroline, and Bobby’s eleven. He’s buried John’s son and two of Bobby’s. His own son Edward contracted bone cancer and had a leg amputated at the age of 12. Kennedy himself nearly died in a plane crash in 1964. And there’s plenty more; take a look at this Wikipedia entry on the “Kennedy curse” which left him with burdens of care for so many. Weddings, illnesses, even funerals, it was he who was there for them all.

When I first came to Washington, I was a very young researcher in the CBS News Washington Bureau. Because I was so young, I was assigned to call the Kennedy “boiler room girls” – campaign workers who knew the young woman who had died in that car in Chappaquiddick, Mary Jo Kopechne, to see if they would talk to us. I called. All of them. Every day for a year.

Every day for a year they took my call. Every day for a year they were polite, gentle and silent on the subject of the crash. And so they have remained. Since I know many other people who have worked for Teddy and shown a devotion and loyalty seldom seen in public life, I am not surprised; that’s how people are in the Kennedy universe. It says a lot about the Senator and his family and the sort of commitment they inspire.

When I think of the Senator though, it’s not any of that I think about. Or of the fact that he can be hilarious, self-effacing and very kind to those around him. My strongest, and most unambiguous memory, is of his eulogy at the funeral of his brother Bobby* in the summer of 1968. You’ll see why.

*This is audio accompanied by cover footage; I couldn’t locate any video of the speech although I remember it vividly and can see it in my head. Can’t get that up on the Web though, at least not yet.