One of these rainy nights, I happened to hear an interview with a woman I had not heard of, named Annabelle Gurwitch, an actress, activist and author. With wry humor and comedic irony, she was talking about her new memoir, The End of My Life is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker. Her story begins in rough days, early in the Pandemic of 2020. Those were strange and challenging times for all of us, particularly so for those, like Gurwich, who worked in the entertainment world. In addition, at that time, she was wrenching her way through a painful separation and divorce from her husband of 20+ years. Then, truly out of the blue, she was shocked with everyone’s nightmare. She received a diagnosis of stage four lung cancer.
Gurwich was in her fifties at the time, and under the impression she was in pretty good shape. Not perfect, but pretty good. She had never smoked, had reasonably healthy habits in terms of diet, exercise and all the “right” things we are supposed to do to take care of ourselves. The devastating news caught her completely by surprise. Lung cancer is one of those hellish fates, from which no one seems to come out alive, and stage four seemed to be an unquestionable and ominous looming death sentence. Getting news like that, seems to be a mandate to tidy up one’s affairs, hunker down, and wait for the end. In Gurwitch’s case, the cancer was far too metastasized to attempt any sort of surgery.
Those were particularly lonely times for all of us, with forced isolation, people dying by the thousands of COVID every day, pervasive fear about the virus itself and all other ubiquitous uncertainties and unknowns.
Gurwitch, being a comedic actress, brought amazing humor and grace to the heart-wrenching story. To me that was particularly amazing as I grew up on a steady diet of bleakness and tragedy, and for the most part an absence of laughter and fun.
The exception was that our dad, occasionally would play entertainer. Being a cantor, he was a public figure of sorts and sometimes performed publicly in other capacities. For that purpose, he would practice carefully curated and honed jokes. I remember finding Jewish comic of the time, Henny Youngman’s Take My Wife, Please, lying around, usually in the bathroom, which was most likely where he went to “study”.
Dad had a quirky way of telling jokes at home. He would almost get to the punchline, and then he would start laughing, laughing so hard that he could almost not get to the punchline, but by then the punchline did not even matter. The contagion of his laughter had all of us in stitches. Then he finally got the punchline out, and we all laughed at that. Those moments of levity were precious and few and far between.
hope
When my sister had stage four ovarian cancer, now almost 10 years ago, I was beside myself. For two years we hovered, posed between fearing for the worst and hoping for the best. I changed my whole schedule so I could be at every single chemo appointment, I was baking and making packages of bread and cheese, doing all I could do to ward off my own devastating terror. The core of neglect trauma is loss and I was walking the delicate tight rope between grief and hope. A stage four designation is like a death knell. But I did not want to believe that, so I hovered, and spent as much time with her as I could.
Nowadays in the cancer world, all the metaphors about “fighting” cancer or being “warriors” in combat with the deadly foe, are being cast off by many cancer patients, in favor of something more on the order of restoration of health and balance. My sister lost all her hair, and first chose to wear scarves to hide it, then opted to simply wear her baldness publicly and own the cancer before the world. She wrote about it. She seemed to be staunchly positive and hopeful, and clearly did not want to talk about the possibility of dying. I remembered my childhood best friend who died of AIDS in 1992. He lamented that no one wanted to talk with him about death, which made him lonelier. But we did. I don’t remember how we talked about it, but I know it was candid and he was comforted by being free to talk about it. In his case, there was no cause for hope. I was glad I could do what no one else would, with him. My sister wanted none of that. She staunchly occupied the hope side of the scale, as did Gurwich for the most part, with a fair measure of often snarky humor. I worked hard to join my sister in her optimism. At least in her presence. But when not in her presence, it dissolved and I was steeped in existential grief. I could not seem to find equilibrium anywhere else. So much like the tug of war between grief and hope that so many survivors of neglect and abuse grapple with, in straddling the feelings about estrangement or impending death of parents or other perpetrators.
It seemed as if my sister was able to dwell on the positive side of the valence. We went on walks with her energetic dogs; we sat in her beautiful blooming yard and watched the birds. She and her husband nursed and bred Monarch butterflies. All I could do was change my whole schedule around so I could be there, and make bread and cheese, my idea of Jewish Penicillin. And follow her lead. Nearly ten years have passed, she lived to see not one but two grandchildren come into the world. Now her cancer seems, much like the Pandemic, to be a distant hazy dream. What is the role of hope and beauty? And laughter?
grief
Of course, we cannot side step grief, or like Pollyanna, wish away or deny it. Grief being the core experience of neglect trauma, it happened. We cannot change what happened, but grief enables us eventually to find a new equilibrium to live with the loss, to find some modicum of peace about what has undeniably happened: change or loss that has occurred. I was amazed when I went to hear Salman Rushdie speak not long ago. He survived a brutal knife attack that involved being stabbed 19 times and losing an eye, after a relatively long life of significant trauma. He looked pretty darn good, with a patch over the missing eye. Aged 78, about 18 months post knife attack trauma, he just published a new book. The memoir chronicling the year following his knife attack may have been the vessel for his grief. When I saw him, I was stunned by his humor, energy and creativity that refused to be extinguished. Certainly, part of what sustained him was the loving and ceaseless presence of his partner. And I am guessing, the same undying positive determination.
Not everyone makes it, of course. And those with the privilege of resources and accessibility of care, loving others and information have a better chance. Grief and hope are not binary either/or choices. We need to know how to have both, and wisdom and support in both knowing and understand the place for each. I am 99% healed from my agonizing hip injury, certainly not to be compared with a life- threatening illness, but a good opportunity to test the hypothesis about hope, determination, connection and of course time. Patience and time. I always. wondered why in English, sick people are called “patients,” because I have none when I am the patient. But it is also a requisite input for any kind of significant healing.
Gurwich received her diagnosis in 2020. She was very much alive on the interview I heard last week. I have not yet finished the book, but her elixir of humor, support and treatment have gotten her from the apparent kiss of death to here. As Angela Davis emphasized, we must generate hope. We can’t endeavor to “find” it, we must produce and disseminate it. Perhaps that is part of the therapist’s task. And she is quick to emphasize, without hope we can’t make change. And she of all people should know.
