Second Place Winner Andre Sobel Award 2011
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Transcript of Second Place Winner Andre Sobel Award 2011
Strong
You Are
Second Place Winner
2011
Andre Sobel
Award
A Survivor
This year’s Second Place Winner of the Andre Sobel Award elected to remain anonymous. We congratulate this winner and share their essay within this packet.
About
ALL PAINS AREN'T PHYSICAL
There are times when the word "cancer" is just too
heavy for me to pronounce; as if saying it is harder than living through it. It seems like ages
ago, and yet I remember like it was yesterday. I don't like talking about it; it hurts like hell to
remember, even for a moment, but I remember:
I remember the date.
I remember the time.
I remember what I was wearing.
I remember wanting to cry -‐ but being unable to cry or afraid to.
I remember it felt like a dream -‐ waiting and hoping I'd wake up and it
would be over.
I remember the unbearable ache of waiting and not-‐knowing the evening
after my chest x-‐ray.
I'll always remember every moment of it.
Most of all, I remember the loneliness. Maybe you might assume that the worst part of
cancer is the pain of the chemotherapy and its many side effects. But for me, the worst part
was the painful loneliness.
Because the chemotherapy and its side effects kept me home or in the hospital a lot of the
time I needed to take a medical leave from school, and that only added to my feelings of
loneliness. I not only felt alone, but I felt isolated and forgotten.
Sitting in that empty hospital room I found myself hoping that people would make a special
effort to include me, or remind me that I was forgotten. I even imagined that friends would
surprise me with gifts, cards, or even an impromptu gathering -‐ just for me. But that didn't
happen. My life was in limbo. Their life was not. I had all the time in the world to talk, they did
not.
Essay
Life went on for my friends. They still has parties and sleepovers. Photos were taken and
posted on Facebook. They were still making plans, but not with me. Because of my absence,
they assumed that I wouldn't know what they were doing, but what they didn't know was that I
filled my days trying to remain a part of my old life via Facebook and Twitter, living vicariously
through their lives. But I wasn't a part of anything. The days went by: Where is my face in
those photos? Where are my invitation (s)? Does anyone even miss me? Can you at least
pretend to include me? Can you please not make it so easy to forget me? I'm still here damn it!
Please don't give up on me! Don't you know that you are my lifeline, my lifeline to live? Why
are you cutting it?
All I wanted was for someone to say that I was beautiful and that nothing was wrong with
me. Day after day, all I hoped for was for the chemo to come to an end, but when it ended, I
hated that it would start again. And I just did not want to start again.
All I wanted was my old life back; I wanted to pick up where I left off. But I couldn't because I
wasn't the same girl. I was a slower, weaker version of myself -‐ more exposed. I didn't know
what was worse: sitting at home fearing that I was forgotten, or returning to school and fearing
that I would be the topic of whispers and stares. In my mind I thought I knew what they were
thinking -‐ "Is that her real hair?" "Boy, that's a nice wig -‐ I wonder how much that cost?" "Why
does she get to be late?" "And I thought she was all better -‐ why is she still getting "special
attention?"
It was hard to stop holding on to what I no longer had. And even harder to pick up the pieces
of my "shattered life" and start to rebuild, one piece at a time, starting at the center of it all -‐
starting with me. Starting with my perceptions.
It wasn't until after my friend Mariah shared a paper she wrote about the day I told her I had
cancer, that I realized that my "cancer" was deeply affecting not only me, but those who love
me.
I ask why you weren't in school. My mom is in the seat next to me,
waving her hands into little waves, mountains, telling me to hurry.
The ice cream in the backseat is melting-‐we need to hurry, so you
need to hurry too. You are a pain, slowly waning, sucking away from
me. The song on the radio muffles your voice, and the arms waving,
and the ice cream melting in the back seat, and the dogs barking are
making it very hard for me to hear you. I want you to spit it out,
because I am shaking, spinning out of control. I ask you if you are
sick. I am convinced, because you skipped the math test on
Thursday. Bitter misery of jealously. The painful, painful irony.
You whisper my name, tell me to stop joking. Why are you talking
so softly? You are making me angry because I can't hear you above
the barking dog and the song on the radio. I tell you to speak up, but
you don't. You just break up your syllables-‐ your voice is broken.
And my voice is about to break too. You breathe in, inhale softly,
and I swear you have stolen my air too. You tell me you have cancer.
Mariah's paper was the jolt to my emotional recovery. Before then it was impossible for me
to see past myself to see that this "cancer" wasn't just about me. "My" cancer was affecting
everyone.
I can tell you that cancer disrupts a lot of your relationships. Your friends won't know what to
say or do, but you should not take that personally even though your heart is broken. You'll cry
for no particular reason, and it will make people uncomfortable. Some friends will rise to the
occasion, others will fall. You will fight with your best friend, just because. And the one person
that you imagined would never let you down probably will.
You'll learn that everyone has to learn how to recover from it. There's no one-‐size fits all
when it comes to recovering from cancer, because it's not just recovering from the disease.
There are the things that I will remember, and those that I want to forget. There are the
piteous feelings I harbored, and yes, I sometimes still succumb to. There are the relationships
to be mended, or their loss accepted. There's no right or wrong when it comes to healing. I
know now that we are all healing and helping each other to heal. There are so many, many
aspects to cancer. I realize that it's not just about me.
I'm not sure when my healing -‐ our healing -‐ will end. It's a "work in process." Truth be told
though, today I am less fragmented and more composed that I've been in months. I am
growing stronger every day. We are all growing stronger in ways that I didn't even know was
possible. We are all healing.