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© Bill Aron
Around Thanksgiving of
2006, I was diagnosed with tongue cancer. It
was my third cancer since 1998 – first Hodgkins, then breast . . . all primary
cancers, all “highly treatable”, the proverbial silver lining, no doubt. Here I was, outfitted with a grotesque set of eleven tubes
sticking out of the underside of my chin through which I was scheduled to get
radiation treatments twice a day for six days.
With a weekend after the fifth day, it would be eight days total.
By the fifth day, I
was in such pain from this apparatus, I could no longer swallow and had stopped
eating. I could only correspond with my family by text messaging my
granddaughter. And I was drooling.
Where would I find the strength to endure the next three days, I kept
asking myself? Since I couldn’t
talk, no one could answer. Having nothing better to do, I concentrated on TV, which was
showing the story of the warrior queen, Boadicea, as the Romans called her; she
was fighting this mighty power to avenge the women of her tribe who had been
raped by soldiers. Fierce and
unrelenting, she led her army from a primitive chariot.
From her tribe there were screams of “Boudiga! Boudiga!” (her real
name). She eventually was
victorious. Women have been
warriors for a long time: the biblical Judith, Joan of Arc, Saint Genevieve,
Jeanne Hachette in medieval France.
Then I thought of my
mother, trying to lead me to safety by escaping the Germans during World War II.
Being Jewish, our chances were slim.
Where had she found the courage to do what she did?
After crossing into unoccupied France, we were caught and prevented from
leaving the town by the Vichy authorities until we had received the necessary
papers to continue our journey to join my father.
While there, she met a very old friend of her family, which at that time
was still in Poland. He told her
that he had witnessed her elderly mother being shot by the Germans.
She didn’t cry, she
didn’t tell me of her sorrow and anguish.
Knowing the truth about the savagery of the Germans, she knew we
couldn’t expect any pity if we were caught.
In that moment, she became a warrior queen -- ready for battle -- who
would never surrender.
But where did that
leave me now, battling another cancer? I
was far from being as strong as she had been.
Afraid, wracked by pain, hungry – where would I find my strength?
It would come from all the stories of courage and dignity told by all the members of my writing group at The Wellness Community – West Los Angeles. Their encouraging wishes, their “tumor humor” jokes they told while bald, nauseated, recovering from double mastectomies . . . yes, that’s where I would find the strength to endure.