Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The mother of Baan's classmate whose older sister happens to be a classmate too at HIC, was recently diagnosed with cancer. Hear this: the medication costs 20 grand/day and will run for a year. Jesus of Nazareth, good Lord! My math falters.

In T. Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," a national tragedy befalls on Lima, Peru in 1714 when the said bridge collapsed, claiming the lives of 5 individuals. A Franciscan from northern Italy by the name of Brother Juniper, in a state of beleaguered grace, set out to make sense of this woeful event. Was it a sheer act of God? What was the common denominator among the 5 victims? Why were they chosen? Was it some sort of natural selection?

The bridge was built by the Incas in the 1600s at the time when brazen bidding practices were still unheard of. It was not of inferior quality and was in fact, a national landmark. Was the accident orchestrated by God? And why on that fateful day in July?

Every person who wanted me to imbibe their optimistic thoughts regarding my own battle with cancer were unanimous in declaring God's deliberate hand in my situation. They all enthused, "it's God's blessing." I try to carry this with me as I give formal and informal testimonials of this blessing disguised in tragedy.

Wilder employs a more accusatory tone, evoking agnostic insight, "to the gods, we are like flies boys kill on a summer day...that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed by the finger of God.'" (p.7)

This goes beyond simple faith, a faith demanding total submission, an absolute surrender of the value of human action, even free will. Who in his right mind would choose to be stricken with cancer? What God in His right frame of mind would brush His finger on ugly cancer cells and give them to His children?

When I was at the hospital, the Wise One shared V. Woolf's insightful description of illness -"how astonishing when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed." Indeed. You travel without roadmaps, for long stretches with no end in sight. Your senses are twice alive - life, all of a sudden, becomes more urgent and yet time, becomes irrelevant. The tic-tac changes, an hour is a day, a week is a month and no one except you, keeps pace - the reckoning of one's mortality renders both freedom and repression.

There is solitude amidst the neighbor's loud radio, loudly thinking that this may be your last chance to hear that overplayed pop song but silently wishing you can endure all of these just to stay a litle longer on this planet. There are legitimate reasons to die but there are more excuses to live.

Yes, Virginia. You gain perspective. You find reaons to be grateful. You learn humility and grace of Hemingway's definition. You sanctify love and love what isn't beautiful and safe.

This is what I pray for my classmate's mother - sanctify love. Wilder's final sentence grips it firmly, "there is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." (p117)

Ai, gugma. So ancient but never out of fashion.

Choosing Life

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always". Rainer Maria Rilke

The human body is a cash cow. All professions, whether in sports or in the flesh trade, capitalize on a healthy body which an ugly and treacherous enemy called cancer trashes and assaults.

After 6 years in remission, I was officially told a year ago today that my cancer returned. Lovers, when they desert you, it’s almost always for good. Not cancer. After its hostile take-over, it can’t seem to find its way to the door no matter how much it’s unwelcomed and condemned. Like some insanely romantic people, it has no pride. You can’t help but detest it for being clingy and needy.

Maybe it’s denial or a key to my defense mechanism that I hardly read medical journals/articles regarding cancer. It’s so anti-Maoist, Mao’s cardinal principle being “know your enemy.” Theoretically, I embrace it not only because knowledge is empowering but it’s damn logical.

But with cancer, I can’t seem to dig its literature and I don’t have the urbane manners to extend my acquaintance. I can’t be charitable to the anarchy it has waged on my body. I mean, I didn’t invite this interloper, why would I even bother to be on speaking terms?

Oh, it’s just me and my irrational mindgames. In these mindgames, cancer is an imperialist shit, the Goliath to my David and if I were to explain it in political jargon, I would begin by saying that cancer cells are comparable to Mao’s Red Army. They attack under the radar in a protracted war whose terms they dictate. Forget about Israel’s elite army. On the ground, guerillas are still the most ingenious and scrappiest fighters in the world.

Cancer cells behave like guerillas. They invade terrains undetected. Exercising patience, they gather strength in numbers and this could take years to manifest. Before you know it, they’ve reached Stage 4, a stalemate, and you’re forced to acknowledge their upperhand and negotiate a peace settlement.

The government’s army, at one point, mimicked guerilla tactics in its counter-insurgency plan but like most copycats, they’ve been shoved into oblivion. Engaging in guerilla tactics will not necessarily transform government soldiers into guerillas because a guerilla’s biggest weapon is not his rifle. It’s his clear political vision and appetite to not just “interpret the world but to transform it.” (KM)

So if there are cancer cells raiding your body for nourishment, it doesn’t do any harm to learn a lesson or two from Mao, one of the best strategists who walked this earth. Fighting cancer is like fighting a revolution.

It all starts with the humility that the enemy is a tough one and you need all the support you can assemble at all fronts.

You organize your armies and categorize your first-line-of-defense, your second unit, and so forth. You strengthen your armies by eating right and maintaining a positive disposition.

You create situations but never force them. If an ambush or a siege is not possible, save it for another day. With cancer, there are days that you feel weak and weaker still. You sit it out – sleep, extend your resting periods, read leisurely, savor the solitude.

As a war of attrition, what is important is rebuilding your strength, reclaiming what was lost, and moving forward. Mao’s revolution is about winning the hearts and the minds of the masses, not their bodies. To a certain extent, cancer may conquer the body but not the mind and the heart. It weakens the body, not the spirit.

Shit, I need another cup of coffee.