Family History

I sat in the walk-in clinic waiting room earlier this week, filling out the new-patient information form. In the section labelled Family History I stared at the word Cancer.

Last week I had a realization, that in the last few months I've had some important life events begin to transpire. Mixed emotions accompany them. Patience is required. Juggling these situations along with all the other every day situations and all the situations my friends share with me from their lives... can be overwhelming at times.

And then there are the friends who sometimes look you in the eye and tell you a truth that you have perhaps thought about, but are no more eager to hear from someone else's lips than to utter it out loud yourself. A truth about acceptance.

“I don't think you have fully accepted what is happening with your Mom...”

I reflected on her words and my thoughts later that evening, and I settled on a question: “How?”

How do you fully accept that someone you love has cancer? How do you fully accept that someone who has been a rock in your life is now struggling with a weakness? How do you fully accept that a parent – that your mom – is going through chemo treatments?

It is not something you do all at once. It is too big to be accepted all at once. It is something that has an initial crisis – at diagnosis; something that slides into a new normal – during treatment; something that requires patience – waiting for results. It is too big to be accepted all at once.

And so I have my moments – moments of forgetting; moments of living in the new normal; moments of remembering and moving towards deeper acceptance. Moments like putting an X beside the word Cancer in the section labelled Family History on the new patient information form at the walk-in clinic.

I left the Emergency Contact spot blank. I was after all only there for a simple ear infection. What possible emergency could come of that? Besides, I'd already processed and accepted one new piece that day. And sometimes, one piece at a time is all you can do.