Ofttimes while watching a movie I figure out what is going to happen well before it does, but watch anyway, hoping to be surprised. In life we do the same. We know some unpleasantness is bound to happen, yet we cling to optimism.

A while back, while driving home with Ed, I told him I thought Diane was done. I shared with him how she had sounded so tired and ready to give in to cancer. I noticed at that moment, as he paused for consideration, he more firmly gripped the wheel, moving both hands purposefully outward. It was odd for him to have such a strict posture behind the wheel and his terse reply, “She will die if she has that attitude,” was an echo of his physical bristling. It was as if he had perversely misunderstood the script. As if he had some how defied the direction of “terminal.” I noticed his hands, like a stunt driver’s spaced widely apart balancing the effort of steering with commanding intent, while his words adeptly swerved around cancer and its wreckage.

As soon as we got home we squabbled, in pretense, over a piece of mail. I was angry at him for being naive, pretending, acting, badly. I expect he was distressed at my pessimism and frustrated nothing could be done.

If you follow my yammerings, you know Diane passed away, not long after I foretold it. You may have also noticed I haven’t posted for quite a long time, just “Ode to Diane.” I have not written about cancer, which I wanted vanquished from my consciousness, nor have I made a final analysis of my year of avoiding plastic. Both subjects had unhappy endings.

I didn’t care to share that I couldn’t stop cancer from its carnage. You already know that. I didn’t care to write that even though I would like to convince the world we should change our wasteful ways, I was incapable of reaching my own seemly easy goals. I feel a need to remove the mask, tone down the theatrical bravado and expose that I’m just me, a little 110-pound, middle-aged woman, audacious enough to hope I can do something of import. I recognize my feeble push is ineffective against such big problems, but mostly I choose to ignore how implausible it is that I can change the world even in the smallest way.

I don’t like confess to resorting to prayer to cover for my human shortcomings, even though I do it daily. Recently, while thinking of the loss of Diane I dusted off an old standard and gave it a whirl. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” The prayer has not been answered. I don’t expect it ever can be. I’m too stubborn to realize I can’t change the unchangeable, much less recognize the immovable, but the pondering of my wee influence on the Sisyphean has not reinforced any feelings of futility. Indeed it has pulled the curtain to renewed optimism. Perhaps the prayer helped me realize I can not change many things. I can only hope to change — something. That simply is all I can do, and that is enough.

A few days ago, I watched what was intended to be an uplifting video of hospital workers, all wearing pink gloves, dancing with glee. As I watched I bitterly asked, “What are they celebrating?” Earlier the same morning I learned a special friend is now in the end stages of battling breast cancer. I felt no joy in her cancer story, just a stark disconnect between the dancing hospital staff aiming to raise a chunk of change for research and care and her predicament. I watched the glove groove disheartened, angry and hurt that such a wonderful woman could be taken by a disease — while those people danced in hopes for a cure that could not help her.

Perhaps the breast cancer public face we have painted is a too happy mask. We know that false face so well. We think of cancer and see a pink cover of walkers, racers, ribbons — a fluffy feminine shell of the heroic and tearful quest for survival. Below though, under that facade of success, there is still suffering, loss and death — the naked, ugly scars of breast cancer.

Watching the pink clad hands swaying, flicking and swinging in a breast cancer jamboree, I felt like a grim wedding guest considering the impending divorce of the bride and groom. As I viewed the video of the hospital staff cavorting, I questioned how many of them knew the face of breast cancer struggle and loss. Did the surgical staff, dressed with masks and eye shields know what it was like to loose a breast, or a life? Were any dancers survivors? Which revelers were they? I searched the faces to pick them out.
Was she dancing because she lived, like me? Was he joyous even though he lost his mother, sister or friend, or did those folks excuse themselves when asked to help with the video saying, “No, I can’t dance.”?

Now, a few days later, while I am still hurt, I understand why they were dancing. They were celebrating hope, an irresistible reason to dance, but a tragedy when it has faded.