JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: The wrong side of the curtains

The wrong side of the curtains

By Angela Hunter

28 August 2008

September and October are not very happy months for me. In late September 1980, just short of her 40th birthday, my Mother was diagnosed with a brain tumour. I was 18yrs old.

Operations, radiotherapy and many, many visits to hospitals became our life and eventually, 3 yrs after her initial diagnosis, she and my father returned to live in England so he could care for her full time while my sister and I got on with our new lives post marriage. I never saw her again. My mother survived for the next 11 yrs until the cancer returned and she finally passed away. Distance and money prevented me from being able to attend her funeral and not having the opportunity to say goodbye is still one of my biggest regrets.

I struggle often with the tremendous emotions associated with her death – guilt being the worst offender. I brace myself for the next few weeks which bring the anniversary of her initial diagnosis, her birthday, my parents' wedding anniversary and her death. I fight to contain the tumultuous waters which bubble under the surface and threaten to spill over for seemingly irrelevant reasons.

And so to last Tuesday when I was told that a friend of mine has been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. Those bubbling waters became surging tides. I wanted to shout, hit something, curl up in a ball and pretend none of it was happening, anything to make it all go away. It didn't.

I drove home in a daze as the tears ebbed and flowed. How could this happen? She's only 38 years old for god's sake. In true public servant style I demanded to see the person in charge that made the decision my friend should draw this prize out of the lottery of life. And while I was at it I had an old score to settle. It still didn't go away.

I turned my thoughts to what she must be going through. Surgery is on Monday where they'll give her the prognosis. There'll be endless hours of chemotherapy, reviews of condition, poking, prodding, testing, more reviews, more chemo. I remembered our long and seemingly never-ending drives to the hospital with Mum. I had a morbid dread of the Oncology department. People with varying degrees of cancer, instructions issued in whispered voices, curtains drawn to protect the innocent. I didn't like being on this side of the curtain. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be the person on the other side. No-one wants to talk about it no-one wants to hear about it. We refer to it in hushed tones as if to prevent that black angel of death from seeking us out or worse still, touching those we love with her infected hands.

So as I head into the next two months I have a new focus for my private grief but I'm mindful that I need to be strong and courageous for my friend – her demons are much fiercer than my mine. I won't pretend I'm not scared though. Not terrified of watching the hair falling out, smelling those smells seeing those curtains again.

Whatever the prognosis, whatever the twists and turns in the journey, there is always inevitably one ultimate destination - peace. Peace after winning the long battle and knowing the fight is over, or the peace that death brings to the sufferer.

I have only one wish for my friend and that is peace and through this process I also hope to find mine.