Anger

My kids picked a movie for us to watch recently (while I was waiting for scan results). Griffin and Phoenix. It's about two single and terminally ill cancer patients who fall in love. I loved the movie. If you are going to have to be terminally ill with cancer, it portrayed the best possible case scenario.

I'm guessing they died within days of each other so spent very little time apart. And neither, in the movie, had any significant relationships they were leaving behind. She had no children, and he'd alienated his long before and was not a part of their lives. His ex-wife was even remarrying, so the kids would have a father when he was gone. Neither seemed to have meaningful careers they were leaving behind. They lived together in his dumpy apartment.

They didn't have a lot to lose. And the person they were most intimate with totally "got" how they felt and what they were going through and shared their experience.

But what I liked most about the movie was that at some point in time they both expressed unadulterated, pure anger. He took a tire iron and smashed windows of parked cars along a street (including his own). She blew up violently at a woman who appeared not to value her children (she had no children and would never have any). I cheered them on when they were acting out.

Anger is a very real feeling most of us have at some point in time.

And anger is justified, it's right, it's politically correct. It's okay for us to be angry. To have anger at the potential loss of our futures, at the potential loss of all of our relationships.....the potential loss of all that we know and love and hold dear. Cancer threatens to take all of that away from us. Cancer also takes away our peace of mind, our comfort, our sense of normality. Cancer takes from us our time, our money. Cancer causes us to unwillingly hurt those we love. Cancer causes us physical pain, cancer terrorizes us. Cancer is a vicious enemy, a monster.

I think we feel we can't express anger sometimes. We think are supposed to feel humble and prayerful and confident and positive and optimistic and grateful for every moment we are alive.

But really, it's okay and right to feel anger at the monster cancer is and what it does to our lives....and it would probably be healthy for us to find a way to express that anger (but Griffin got arrested for smashing the windows, so maybe not that :-)