Good Friday

This day has many anniversaries. The Christian one concerns an event that took place two millennia ago. In Northern Ireland it’s also known for a Peace Agreement signed in 1998. And on this day twelve years ago, I was diagnosed with stage three cancer. I remember the occasion vividly. At the time I thought my life was at an end. In truth, it was. The life I’d known up to that point in time had ended. I was embarking on a new phase of my life, as a cancer patient. And more recently (touch wood) as a cancer survivor.

Cancer treatment has taken away bits of my body and caused a range of physical frailties that I always have to contend with. It has put me and my nearest and dearest under enormous stress (and still does). But it has also given me resources. Or more accurately, made me develop them. To survive you have to be determined. To struggle against the odds. To struggle against a system that sees you as just another patient. To struggle against yourself. In short, you have to be someone who will ask the awkward questions, who won’t give up when encountering an obstacle, who will keep on keeping on. There is no one word for this survivorship. Resilience, fortitude, endurance are in the right area. It’s more a package of qualities that grow when you are under duress for an extended period of time. Not weeks, nor months, but years.

All of this is undoubtedly crucial for survival. Yet something more is required. You have to be lucky too. All the will in the world cannot alone save you. The stars have to be aligned as well. So today, I remember the friends and family who had the determination, but who didn’t have the luck. My brother Rob. Jean Morgan. Elizabeth Sloss. Charlie Adams. The list goes on and on. So many have met an untimely death at the hands of the Big C. May you rest in peace.