Sunday, December 2, 2007

What cancer cannot do

Last Sunday morning, I was informed that the valedictorian of my batch in law school (Jose Rizal College, now Jose Rizal University) died of cancer of the pancreas. Back in our law school days, we competed against each other in class recitations and in exams. In recent years, I referred cases to him, and in turn, he would ask me to make special appearances whenever he had conflicts in his trial schedule.

Many years ago, Dra. Rita Cruz-Clavio, long-time doctor in Rizal High School in Pasig City died after a lingering bout also with cancer of the pancreas. Early this year, my former church mate (Bethany Makati) Dra. Myrna Gigantone succumbed to cancer.

Perhaps my earliest memory of someone suffering from and dying of cancer is that of Rose, sort of an “ate” to me during my days at the Mandaluyong Bible Baptist Church in Nueve de Febrero St. in the 1970’s. She was an Ilocana and so we called her “Manang Rose”. For over a year, she was very sick but doctors couldn’t diagnose what was wrong with her. It was only when her nurse-friend Azer (if I remember her name correctly) took Rose to PGH that she was diagnosed with cancer. I remember that Sunday morning when our pastor announced that Manang Rose was terminally ill with cancer.

She was confined in PGH and since I was studying at that time in the nearby Philippine Christian University, I visited Manang Rose one afternoon. I found her in a good mood and she kept telling me and another visitor that she was feeling quite well and that she wanted to go home. I knew she was dying and I turned to look at the traffic in Taft Avenue to avoid looking at her. Her family finally brought her home to Tayug, Pangasinan but even then, they could not muster the courage to tell her that she was dying.

Manang Rose died and we were told that during her last moments, she was singing her favorite gospel song. Several members of the church went to Tayug for the funeral. I wanted so much to go to Tayug to say my final goodbye to Manang Rose and so I borrowed money from my sister for the transportation.

Below is a short but very famous poem about cancer. The author’s unknown but it began circulating sometime in 1999. There’s a PDF version of this poem which you might want to download.

Cancer is so limited...

It cannot cripple Love.
It cannot shatter Hope.
It cannot corrode Faith.
It cannot destroy Peace.
It cannot kill Friendship.
It cannot suppress Memories.
It cannot silence Courage.
It cannot invade the Soul.
It cannot steal Eternal Life.
It cannot conquer the Spirit.
Hope: Where is God when it hurts?

One of my favorite writers is Philip Yancey. I don't agree with everything he says but in terms of language and writing style, he is head and shoulders above other Christian writers. I have read and re-read several of his books (What's So Amazing About Grace?; Reaching for the Invisible God; Finding God in Unexpected Places; Disappointment with God; The Jesus I Never Knew; In His Image; Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.) My favorite among Yancey's books is his classic "Where is God When It Hurts?" The best chapters in this book are "Arms Too Short to Box with God" and On My Feet Dancing." On page 77 of this book, Yancey sums up what God may be saying to us in times of pain, sickness, or death:

“God is speaking to us through pain - or perhaps, in spite of pain. He can use it to make us aware of Him. The symphony He is working out includes minor chords, dissonance, and tiring fugal passages. But those of us who follow His conducting through these early movements will, with renewed strength someday burst into song.”
Memories and an unanswered question

The question that has been in my mind all these years is, should we have told Manang Rose that she was terminally ill? We had to respect her family's desire not to tell her and so we did not.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross became famous with her study on death and dying. She discovered that a person who knows he or she is terminally ill oftentimes goes through certain stages – anger, denial, bargaining and acceptance. Kubler-Ross discovered that a dying person oftentimes focuses not on his or her academic achievements, career highlights, professional pinnacles, but on snatches of childhood memories, stories of friendships from long ago, and on events that may have seemed insignificant at the time but which impending death and reflection have now given a new perspective. A dying person oftentimes thinks about places that hold special memories (the house in the province, the old high school), childhood friends, falling in love for the first time …

Zoe: Eternal life

Theologians tell us that “zoe” is the Greek word for “eternal life” or “eternity.” One pastor, teaching on eternal life, was innocently asked by a grade school student, “Pastor, do you mean to say that I will forever be a Grade 5 student?” The pastor then explained that “zoe” does not refer only to an endless period of time but also to the distinct quality of life for that endless period of time.

When I was a first year student in high school, I had a classmate named Felino (a math genius). One time, as we were on the top level of the grandstand, gazing at the Marikina River flowing lazily behind the school, Felino said that when his time to die came, he wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered all over the river. That he said, was his idea of eternal life.

I think it was martyred missionary Jim Elliot who said, “When it’s your time to die, make sure that all you have to do is die.” What he says, I think, is not to leave any loose ends in your life - no words of love, affirmation or encouragement left unsaid; no hurts and heartaches inflicted by other people left unforgiven; none of your own sins and offenses against other people left unconfessed …
Famous American preacher Peter Marshall (former chaplain of the US Senate) once said, "Death isn't a wall, it's a door." The Apostle Paul clarifies in I Corinthians 15:51-58 that death comes to us all and then eternity begins:

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy sting?

O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

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