Cancer

When I learned about the cancer of a colleague I had worked with for a long time, I made it a point to visit him on my regular visits to Germany. We picked a restaurant in the center of Frankfurt and each time I visited, we had lunch there. Initially I wasn't quite sure what exactly my role was in this exchange. Could I be a healer, a helper, a psychologist? I told my friend about my other career as a spiritual writer and he was naturally interested to learn more about it given the seriousness of the disease.

There is something interesting about my friend; we work in the same industry, we almost have an identical age, he being born less than a month after me. When I met him last time around, it seemed that I perceived anger in him. Was he angry at the situation he is in? That would be only natural. After all he is married and has children just like me. Caught in a situation like that you cannot help wondering, what would happen if I died, and that thought surely makes you angry and afraid.

I found in my friend a remarkable will-power to live that I am not sure I would have if I was in his shoes. Strangely though, something in me has changed since our first meeting a couple of years ago. Then I felt that I was in a position of strength; today I would only state that my health is in better shape. I am not sure my frame of mind really is. In fact, I have discovered the same  anger and conflict in me as well over this period. So if I discovered cancer in me tomorrow, I couldn't even say that it would be a big surprise. I feel my friend and I are similar in this way too.

We are all in the same boat. Health or illness, success or failure, we accept what is and we do the best with the situation and try to move on. A conflict is not something to be ashamed off; anger is something to be accepted. "Dis-ease" is an opportunity to let go, to heal and to transcend. What would you do differently if cancer struck you tomorrow? Perhaps today already is a good day to do something about it.