Kate Winslet & Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
“I am not a concept.”
Famous last words from Clementine, aka the glorious Kate Winslet in the best love story you’ve never seen, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Like Clementine, I too am not a concept, but I am sometimes treated like one.
I am a cancer survivor, but I am not brave. I’m chicken. That can be a good thing, though. I’m a very squeaky wheel. When you have cancer, the smallest advantage counts.
I am a cancer survivor, but I will not make a better friend to you than someone who is not. Most likely I’ll be worse. I’ve been traumatized. I can be mean. I can find fault with almost anything you say or do. And you can’t get me on it, because I’m always on home base.
I am a cancer survivor, but I am not more spiritual than you or anyone else. You think because I’ve been sick I’m closer to God? How do know what I’ve been saying to God? Could be things that are unprintable.
I am a cancer survivor, not the embodiment of loved ones who abandoned you in your time of need. I know it can feel that way. The most casual acquaintance walking away can seem like desertion. You want to grab a leg and plead: “Take me with you. Take me to your world. I don’t like mine anymore.”
I am a cancer survivor, but I can not make up for the life that once stretched out before you. I realize I am a poor substitute. But so are you, for me.
I am a cancer survivor, but I am not civic minded. I do not want to bake cakes. I do not want to beg for donations. I do not want to attend meetings in windowless rooms.
You think cancer has changed me. You’re right. It has.
I don’t know how long I’ve got. I just want to be. More than the most zen monk or holiest priest you’ve ever met, I just want to be.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Clementine tells her lover she is not a concept. She’s just a screwed-up girl looking for a little peace of mind.
Amen, Clementine. Who more than you deserves it? Who more than me?
Dear Donna,
Well, as usual, I’m late — in this case, three or four months. I just now read this, as a result of a string of Web searches that apparently had little focus or discipline, but at least I ended up with something worthwhile. Funny, but when I Web-surf, I feel like a junkman, looking for one nice bauble out of a ton of rusted scrap.
To the point: I really like this piece. In fact, right now I CAN’T SAY just HOW much I like it. I know you know what I mean, but I trust you’ll know to know not to say what you know to anyone you know — or don’t know, for that matter.
What I can say this morning is that taking care of my late wife, Sherri, for more than six years helped me to identify at least a little with this piece, though you and I have discussed the fact that cancer patients and/or cancer survivors and their families live in different realms.
There is, however, overlap among those realms. Recently, someone paid me a compliment. The word that was used was “noble.” It was a nice thing for the person to say. But I didn’t take care of Sherri because I was noble. I took care of her because I loved her and because I was selfish. That is, I wanted desperately for her to get well and tried to do everything I could to help doctors, chemo, radiation, surgeries and all the rest lead to that path of wellness.
And it did not happen.
I, too, am damaged. I woke up at 5:30 this morning even though I did not have to get up till 7. This is not infrequent. Sherri has been dead nearly a year now (I almost wrote “gone” instead of “dead” there, then decided, “To hell with the euphemism”) and the grief I feel still can be exceptionally stark, fierce, raw. It’s really bad sometimes upon waking. The empty bed etc. etc.; oh, poor poor pitiful me blah blah blah yeah we’ve heard this before, John.
I don’t know if I’m a better man for having gone through all this. Yet you said at Sherri’s burial that you thought I was a better man than the one you’d known before Sherri became ill. I told you I accept that conclusion, and I still do.
But I’m still selfish, and still a jackass. You know why? Because I’d rather have Sherri alive and well and at my side, and be a WORSE man, than to be a better man and live now without her.
I am absolutely sure you know what I mean.
I do not say often enough how much I like your site, Donna, and probably (no, definitely) I don’t say often enough how much I love you and Bob. Forgive me, if you will. It’s difficult for me even to use the word “love” these days.
Because despite it all, no, I feel as you do: I’m not more spiritual, more noble, more enlightened, braver, or necessarily stronger than I was seven years ago. I certainly may be “tougher,” which isn’t exactly the same as stronger, and yes, I can be mean. I can be a real son of a bitch about all this, truth be told. And like you, I’m definitely NOT A CONCEPT.
Thanks for writing this. Sorry it took me several months to read it. But after all, I am …
Still a Jackass,
John
I’d make that same trade, brother. A world with Sherri in it is a better world, period.
I think of her often, and I’ll especially be thinking of her this weekend. You know she’d be whooping it up no matter the outcome.
We love you too.
Donna and John,
My husband has just been diagnosed with kidney cancer. I was looking for solace in someone who would have had a similar experience and I bumped into your site.
Donna, I loved what you wrote becoz it really touched me.
And John, I loved what you replied coz frankly I am in your shoes right now.
I love my husband dearly. He is the best gift that God has given me apart from my three wonderful boys and I am trying hard to be brave and strong for them all.
I would love for both of you to give me some advice on what is enstore for me on an emotional platform.
The only thing that really helps is that I am a hardcore optimist and my immense Faith in God. But at some point in the near future all that is about to be challenged. “That” I do know. No doctor or shrink knows better than the patient themselves or their family. So glad I found your site.
Please do write back on : naush.wordpress.com
God bless
Naush
Hi Naush. I’m sorry to hear about your husband’s illness.
I don’t know much about kidney cancer, but I do know that cancer is unpredictable. Just today I heard about a liver cancer patient that supposedly had a few weeks to live. She’s now in her 17th year, still in remission.
After cancer is a good time to live one day at a time: This morning I’ll wake up and have a good day. Or maybe a not-so-good day. But by golly, I’ll have a day!
You’ll be in my thoughts. Take care.
Dear Donna-
It is disturbing to find just how unoriginal my thinking is. Recently my husband and I have been talking about this very movie a lot. I am still weepy all of the time and I so appreciate that by being articulate about your experience I can at least amancipate myself from the fear that if I don’t force myself into ATTEMPTING “positive thinking” lest I kill myself with my negativity.
I’ve been reading over some of some random notes I’ve jotted down over the last 16+ months in an attempt to finally settle down and work on the piece for Lynn. Everything I had was in third person. Everything. Classic PTSD depersonalization…fantastic. The prickly thing about this trauma, is it is ongoing. That is the part that makes psychological “healing” so much more improbable, or at the very least, elusive…but we’re expected to ignore the stats right?
Thanks for everything,
Your voice in the world does more than you can imagine,
Christina
Thank you Christina. Sometimes it really is like a nightmare, and you just keep wanting to wake up.
As for healing, what if they took the soldiers who survived D-Day, and told them that every year they’d have to go back to Normandy and fight their way across the beach again. Every bone in your body would be crying out: No, not that! Not again! Not Omaha Beach!
Patients have to keep reminding themselves that doctors and nurses are helping them, not torturing them.
Dear Donna my sister Donna Trussell has stomach cancer and has had surgeries and chemo and still suffers theres no cure shes in pain alot and suffers all the time nothing helps the pain
sheliah: I’m sorry to hear about your sister. You might want to talk to her doctor about being referred to a pain specialist. Or maybe Hospice, since they are experts at palliative care.