We spend our whole lives contained in these bodies. Flesh, blood, and bone. We all breathe, eat, feel and eventually, we all die. We are told that we need to take care of our bodies. Eat well. Wear sunscreen. Make sure you exercise regularly. Don’t do drugs. Use protection. Wear a seat belt. Don’t smoke. Avoid inhaling strong chemical fumes.
Surely, following these rules will help you live longer and take care of the meat suit you’re burdened with, right? But what about when they don’t? What happens when your body starts attacking you from the inside out?
You feel a pain in your breast for weeks and discover a lump. You discover a mole that wasn’t there last summer and it continues to grow. You suffer from debilitating migraines that started out as just a dull ache, and scans show a tumor growing inside of your scull.
It sneaks up on us. It starts out silently and turns into a whisper. We become so used to the noise that we don’t hear it until it’s screaming out at us.
Why didn’t you say anything before? How didn’t you notice? This is your body after all. What do you mean you were too busy to think about it? How can this be? You just found out.
Cancer.
I don’t know anyone who hasn’t lost someone that they care about from cancer. The first time that I was really made aware of its power was in seventh grade when my math teacher lost the battle she was fighting. It was devastating to all of her students. What made it worse was the fact that we had no idea what was happening.
We knew she had headaches and that she was so sick that she needed to go back home with her family. What we didn’t know was that she wasn’t expected to return, until she left us for good. She wasn’t even in her 30s yet.
Throughout the years I’ve been made more and more aware of the damage that our own bodies can cause. I lost my grandpa to cancer. My childhood pastor’s wife won her battle against breast cancer. Lots of people I know have had to have skin cancers removed. A boy that I went to school with had no hair from his cancer treatment. I lost my favorite pet bird to cancer. One of my good friends in high school still goes in for chemo on a regular basis. My great uncle is fighting it hard right now.
Everywhere I look, I see people being attacked by their own bodies. I see people fighting to survive. I see people mourning the loved ones buried in the ground who weren’t so fortunate as to see victory.
It’s humbling, really, to think about how much we don’t know about our own selves, much less about the people who are around us every day.
Don’t ever assume you know what battles people are fighting. Things are rarely ever what they seem.
