A friend of mine, who I don't know nearly as well as I would like to, recently wrote to tell me that she is away on an extended basis because her mother has been diagnosed with cancer. I don't know how to respond to that. Do I tell her that my Mom died of cancer? Do I tell her how I felt when my Mom was diagnosed? I wanted to fight...absolutely everyone...and though I like to think I have grown since then, I still feel my fists curling and rage welling and tears spilling, wanting to punch the doctors and nurses and social workers and second husband who just handed in their dicks at the door and gave up since it was cancer and there was nothing left to do really except to make sure that whatever time she had left was as unpleasant and humiliating as possible.
Somehow that doesn't seem terribly supportive.
On the other hand, I would feel like a fraud if I were to say something along the lines that it's great that they caught it early! It's great that it's post menopause breast cancer, the best cancer to have after prostate (which she isn't qualified for) and colon! Because of course it's cancer and cancer kills. Unless you die of something else first.
So this is what I have instead:
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a beetle named Felix. Felix was a very special sort of beetle because he had a very special mouth: it was infinitely large. This is not a nice way of saying that Felix was loud, because he wasn't loud. He was very quiet. He was very quiet because he did not dare to open his mouth. When your mouth is infinitely large, you must be very careful to make sure you don't swallow the world. Poor Felix.
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