Groundhog Day

No matter how hard we try, we really can’t fully understand another person’s life experiences until we’ve walked in their shoes. This holds particularly true for the guests of The Hotel Carcinoma. As my friend Rev. Carol Taylor puts it, when it comes to understanding the experience of living with melanoma, or any other cancer, nobody really gets it until they get it.

I’m one lucky boomer, in my eighth year of N.E.D. status after a Stage IIIc diagnosis and some very nasty treatment. My doc is cautiously optimistic I’ll stay that way, so I am too. But he invariably tells me that melanoma can still come roaring back in my lungs, liver, brain if I had one, whatever, so we need to be vigilant and watchful. Consequently, I feel a bit like Bill Murray’s character in the movie Groundhog Day, waking up in this same Hotel and living the same day over and over and over-- but trying to do it all just a bit better each day.

So, folks, if you haven’t walked in the shoes of a "cancer survivor" (a term I don’t much like because it suggests the fight is all past history), whatever you do don’t tell us we’re “cured” so we need to “move on” and “get over it”. Like Murray’s character, we’re stuck in a place and time we can’t seem to leave but we’re doing our very best to seize our personal Groundhog Days and live them fully with all the zest and flair we can muster.

I’ll end today’s homily with a new version of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ “You Don’t Know How It Feels”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsH4CrwExCQ


Let me sing to you tonight
I'll take you on the C life ride
There's some place I wish to flee
Black C don't give a damn for me

But let me get to the point, can’t blow this Hotel joint
And shout the message real loud, I'm not alone and I’m proud
You don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to be me

Cancer comes, cancer goes
Watch those lungs, watch those moles
I wake up in between
Bad memories and life’s dreams

So let's get to the point, can’t blow this Hotel joint
Can’t head on down the road
There's nowhere I get to go
And you don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to be me

My old tan was born to rock
It's still tryin' to stop my clock
Think of C what you will
I've got my little case to kill

So let's get to the point, can’t blow this Hotel joint
And can’t head on down the road
There's nowhere I get to go
And you don't know how it feels
No, you don't know how it feels to be me