Even if we die too young from cancer, our lives do not have to be tragic.
The mothers with cancer in the two stories I have chosen are tragic cases of dependent women who die. They are both deeply loved, and they both love deeply. They have flashes of brilliance and special, admirable qualities, but their lives are not, in my opinion, successes. The two stories are “Terms of Endearment” (1983) and “Wild” (2014), the former being fiction, and the latter non-fiction. I am focusing on the movie versions. Both movies are powerful works of art, but the portrayal of mothers with cancer is disturbing and overdue for an upgrade.
These mothers are the glue of their families. They have insight and wisdom, emotional substance, and are both portrayed as highly intelligent, but neither gained independence or professional success. When they die, they leave chaotic, gaping holes rather than secure, stable, functional families who can progress in their lives as a unit, and as individuals, and thrive, without the mother. A mother’s death does not cause a healthy, stable spouse and healthy, stable children to collapse. They will stand as pillars of strength, while being sad, missing their mother, and grappling with her death, if this is the strength she displays while fighting cancer.
The times that I faced death and pondered my demise, I never once pictured a vacuous family. My death would be sad, I would be absent, but my family would go on. My kids have their father, each other, aunts, uncles, cousins, community, and friends. Most importantly, they have themselves. They have identity, goals, vision, life experience, coping skills, capacity for joy, athletics, and education.
I saw “Terms of Endearment” soon after it was released. It remains one of the more lauded movies of our time. I was 22 and in medical school. Why did Emma have so many good qualities yet so many deep flaws? That is the question of the story for me.
Emma, the cancer victim in “Terms of Endearment” states, “I thank God for Flap (the fiancé) for getting me out of here.” She is referring to River Oaks, in Houston. This is one of the nicest neighborhoods in the country. She is not escaping destitution. She had other options to get herself out of there but never considered education and a job. This is not Jane Austen’s era. Women have options. Emma may have been referring to escaping her domineering mother, but geographical change did not work. She remained willingly, pathologically, over-enmeshed with her mother throughout her life.
A minor scene that holds great meaning to me is the sequence of Emma lying down on a window seat, dialing her mother on the phone, in her bathrobe, while the kids are heading off to school. This never happened in my house when my kids were that age. Breakfast was cooked for the kids, the kitchen was cleaned, a load of laundry was done, and the dogs were walked and fed. Kids’ backpacks, coats, homework, sports gear, and lunches were being organized, and I was heading to work after taking them to school. No morning phone calls to my mother, no lying down, and no bathrobe. Emma is not an ambitious woman.
Emma is brilliant when she says it is ok “to talk about the cancer”, and that it is “not so tragic.” I could not agree more. She delivers one of the best mothering speeches ever in the film when she tells her oldest son, who was in his grumpy, negative phase, that she knows he loves her, so he is never to feel guilty. No dry eyes.
Emma never confessed to her husband that she had an ongoing affair, even on her death bed, after her husband admitted the same. Emma told her mother about the affair, so she did not feel shame. This was Emma not sharing the guilt. She could not entrust her children to their father. Who marries a man to get them out of the squalor of River Oaks, but that man cannot raise their kids or keep the family unit intact? He did have gainful employment. I see no other redeeming qualities in this man. But she married him, despite stern warning against the marriage from her mother, who ultimately gets the kids.
Emma complains about not having enough money, yet she has no job, but she has time to have an ongoing midday affair. Her oldest son nails it when he says to his grandmother that his mother was too lazy to even check out scouts. Emma was lazy.
I always believed I would survive my cancer. I never knew this as an absolute fact, but I believed it. I would not be Emma, dying in a hospital bed with a grey face, with her feckless husband and her larger-than-life mother at her side. I knew I did not want to be that.
A positive attitude and a solid life foundation are not enough to cure you of cancer. But they help. I never pictured myself in a deathbed scene. Not once. I always focused on the next good lab test and the next little thing I might be able to do. Life is a competition, and I feel that I did a better job with my life with cancer than this fictional cancer mom.
The working mothers in “Terms of Endearment” are portrayed in a shockingly negative light. No one would want to be their friend. They are snobs and treat Emma horribly. Emma’s best qualities are that she is easy to please, as Flap observes, she sees herself and her mother as having a positive relationship while her mother sees them as “always fighting”, and, although she is socially awkward, notably in her questionable fashion choices and her clunky gait, she is not self-conscious at all. She is fine ordering the massive dessert. At the same time, in my opinion, she never launched her life and is a hot mess. The tragedy is more the mess she leaves behind and her lack of life successes than her death.
I read and saw “Wild” after my first rounds of treatment, before my decline and transplant. This was about 5 years after its release as a movie. I had already completed the writing of the first section of my story. “Wild” is autobiographical.
I particularly admire the way the author, Cheryl Strayed, portrays her ex-husband in such a positive light. He comes out smelling like a rose in this gripping saga that is unfortunately weighted, with a few notable exceptions, towards negative male characters.
I would personally love to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in my lifetime but for very different reasons than Cheryl. I love to hike and backpack. Backpacking is a skill, as is well-illustrated in the movie. Cheryl morphed from a novice to an expert backpacker. I am not convinced that she ever enjoyed it or desired to backpack again. She used hiking and backpacking as tools to fix herself. I see hiking, backpacking, and camping as among my favorite recreational activities in and of themselves. These activities are psychologically incredibly important to anyone who loves them for the beauty, fitness, adventure, endurance, the skill of self-sufficiency, and being outdoors in nature, but I have never seen these adventures as a life rescue or psychological salvation. The times I have spent backpacking have been pure joy, soaking in every moment, rather than feeling “desperate for it to be over,” as Cheryl states.
The author bares herself to the bone. No external analysis is needed. She puts it all out there in a brutally honest fashion. The character that has more mystery and confusion, for me, is her mother–the cancer mother who dies. This woman loves learning and is trying to better herself. She has a tremendous capacity for love and joy. I do not understand her horrible primary male relationship (with her husband) and her dependency. She, Bobbi, seems highly intelligent and motivated. She says school, as an adult, is “hard but fun” and “there is so much to know.” She comments to Cheryl, “I have to do everything. I want to do everything.” This begs the question: why didn’t she?
Soon after Bobbi is diagnosed with cancer, she says, “I was never me. I was always a mother or a wife. I was never in the driver’s seat of my own life. I always thought there was so much time.” My heart breaks for this woman, and for her daughter to hear this. I believe she died in her forties, in the nineties. Why did she not drive her own life? No answer to this.
My heart breaks for many reasons, but perhaps the most significant is that she describes being someone’s mother and someone’s wife as restrictions on her happiness, circumstances that removed her ability to live her own life, and a hindrance to her individuality. I feel the opposite. Being a mother and being a wife are honors and amongst the greatest sources of growth in my life. They are the most important things in my life, and I am fortunate.
I felt I could control how well I did in school, and this was the ticket to a career that provided satisfaction, independence, and self-sufficiency. I never knew if I would be lucky enough to find an awesome husband, (I can be difficult to deal with), and then be lucky enough to have children. These life events cannot be controlled. They are gifts. They are my good fortune. Having a career, living life to its fullest, doing everything I wanted, and realizing my visions: were all things I could and did control.
I made sure my sons knew that I had no life regrets. I had a great life. If I died at 57, I would be fulfilled. I left no projects unfinished on the craft table. My death would be sad, but not tragic, and they should not pity me.
When Cheryl says to her dying mother, “You are the center of everything that I am”, my heart breaks again. I do not wish to be the center of anyone else’s life: not my kids’ or my husband’s. They have their own lives and identity. I hope I was a positive influence and source of strength, but not the center. I mostly hope they saw me as brave, not perfect, but brave.
Bobbi is brilliant when Cheryl asks when reviewing how submarginal their lives are, “What part of it do you not get?” Bobbi replies, “There’s nothing I don’t get. Believe me. But then what?” I lived this line. When I was exuding positivity and gratitude while fighting cancer, there was nothing I did not get, but then what? There are desperate days, but you might as well get through them. Get through.