Two Questions.
Thank you to everyone who read the latest post and I am so glad it was helpful. Two questions arose: the first regarding hope and the second about what to say when first diagnosed.
Well the second one is the easiest. No matter what, mention it. The situation I was given was that you bump into someone recently diagnosed and they don't mention it. Well, as far as I am concerned, go ahead. I won't mention it to people because I don't know if they know and I don't want to make people cry! If you go ahead and talk about it, that gives me the freedom to discuss it too. Oh, and by the way, mention the cancer word - don't hide around it. Don't say I hear you've been ill, or skirt around it: call the spade the flipping shovel. If you know, and if you have dealt with it, then talk about it in detail and as in my previous points listen.
Now to the second: hope. This is tricky: on the one hand having hope is great but I do feel when I share my fears and someone says ''you have to hope'' or somesuch other then that person is denying my feelings. They are telling me that my feelings don't matter. I know that they aren't ACTUALLY saying that but that is what I hear, and I retreat and back off. Sometimes, I do feel hopeful and joyful, but there are a lot of times when I do feel hopeless and what I need then is not expressions of hope but actually I need someone to listen, someone to tell me that what I feel is valid and that I am right to be scared and fearful of the future.
Everyday, I keep hoping that all will be ok, but there is another side and for my own sanity, and the future of my children, and family, that needs to be recognised and shared too.
I am always willing to answer any other questions people have as it is lovely to know that others are being helped by these words...
Minerva
8 comments:
This is all incredibly helpful. If faced with a loved one with cancer, I for one feel utterly helpless and unknowing as to what to do to be of practical, tangible, supportive help.
Helped before - and helped again today - with this post, Minerva. Thank you.
Just checking in on you, and hoping that my last comment on "hope" didn't offend you. If it did, I am terribly sorry, I truly did not mean to...
I am still praying for you and thinking about you :)
-H
Cancer has no rights but the person who has cancer has every right to express everything they think and feel in as many ways and words they can find to express themselves. We truly want to listen, so as I read your post,sometimes over again, I pretend you are talking to me and I try to hear every syllable in every word you write.
OK - good answer.
I would always try never to say 'You have to hope' (well, I hope I would!), because it's not for me, or any of us, to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel, ever.
Whatever you feel is valid, and we're signed up here to listen.
Hope is what I feel for you Min. I guess I can 'own' that hope for you, because it's mine. You need not share it unless you want to. But can I get it out and show it to you sometimes if I think it might help?
'hope' is a word that many cling to, but at the same time, they have to look at the big picture realistically. Both can be done.
What I am most afraid of is comnig over as pitying.
I know that we can do it without meaning to, I remember when I had my surgery (and all those lifetime implications) that everyone was sympathetic, but sometimes it verged on pity.
People have started using the 'hope' word with my dad, his next scan is in January. All those weeks I visited you and rattled on about 'hope'.
It's not the word that counts - it's the emotion....
cq
I am so glad that you shared about hope...that sometimes one just needs to vent and talk..not be *bubbled* with hope and joy. When I talk with my Aunt, I am not sure if I am more helpful to speak encouraging words or to agree with her...I think what you are saying is validate validate validate ...very helpful.
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