A Conversation of Compassion and Kindness

I speak about cancer. A lot.

Whether I am talking about my book, Under a Desert Sky, or teaching a class on Reclaiming Your Scattered Story or volunteering for various cancer organizations, I speak about various aspects of the cancer journey –

What to Say and Not Say When Someone is Diagnosed.

How to Reach Out in Kindness.

Or How to Capture a Cancer Story on Paper.

I am comfortable when I have my prepared notes on a particular subject in front of me. Answering questions at the end of my speech is still a growing edge, especially as the topic of cancer is highly emotional and stirs up the deepest parts of our stories with people we love.

When I finish speaking, and ask, "Do you have any questions?", I never know what hidden landmines I have triggered. I have been asked questions like:

“I have medical power of attorney for my elderly father and he has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Our family made the decision not to tell him. Do you think we have made the right choice?”

Or

“My niece died one year ago at the age of 26. The holidays are coming up and nobody is talking about it. I need to talk about it. How can I best bring it up at our next family dinner?”

Or

“I have been in treatment for metastatic cancer for three years and I am done. I want to end treatment. Is it okay to be done?”

Perhaps, you can understand why I am a bit hesitant of questions after I finish speaking. I find myself in a position of author, expert, therapist and pastor. Many times, I find myself treading water in an ocean of questions, way over my head, and beyond my area of expertise.

Recently, I finished speaking at an outdoor event, under the desert noonday sun, in a garden courtyard. My talk had been on the importance of small acts of kindness and how the credential of kindness qualifies you to make a difference, a topic beautifully covered in the book, There is No Good Card for This by Kelsey Crowe, Ph.D. and Emily McDowell. Thankfully, the questions at the end of this particular speech had to do with my being an author. Nothing too difficult.

After the meeting concluded, I knew what was to come – the second round of questions from individuals who didn’t want to publicly ask the questions burning a hole in their souls.

A stout, elderly man waited until the congratulatory circle around me had disbanded, before he came up to share his story of being a mortician for over five decades. Of sitting with people on their worst days. Of comforting parents on the loss of their children, sometimes from cancer.

“Those are the hardest,” he confessed, trying to swallow the emotion down with a gulp and a swipe across the eyes.

He was not successful.

I heard his confession change to present-tense, and I knew he was seeing young faces as if the losses had just happened. Faces he carried inside him.

“I eventually had to walk away from it,” he said, and I heard the shame in his voice, the pain of not being enough.

And in that moment, I knew I was not enough either, not enough to erase five decades of worst days, but I gripped his hand. Hard. And extended what I could, my credential of kindness that God has given me.

“Thank you for being there for them,” I said. “What a gift you have been given to share with others. You have kept a soft heart of compassion in spite of it all. You have not hardened your heart against pain. Thank you.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “It’s not been easy.”

“No.” I agreed. “It’s not.”

It’s not.