Each year when fall settles in, the leaves are gone and it’s time to think side dishes for Thanksgiving (my favorite part of the holiday) I can’t help but reflect on our final Thanksgiving with Cassie.
That year she wanted to fundraise for First Descents as a way to return as alumni for another adventure. Her vision was to dress as Cruella de Vil and all the donors to her fundraiser would receive a “Team Cassie” shirt with dalmatian-like spots. We would all meet in Detroit for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. Of course, she had a vision and in true Cassie form we had to execute. So there I was ironing on patches to the OG “Team Cassie” shirts left over from the first spaghetti dinner. There was quite a crowd of puppies in support of Cassie.
My core memory from that day is watching her in the lobby of what is now Huntington Place Convention Center, just taking in the love surrounding her. I can't really describe the look on her face, except to say it was almost as if she knew what was coming and was exceptionally grateful for the life God had given her. Even through all the troubles, she was loved, and she knew it. What a gift.
I thought this was a good time to share an email Cassie sent to Chris and me not long before she went into hospice. She was away at MSU and wanted to share her reflections on the five stages of grief, something she had become all too familiar with.
There was a little note at the top of her email that said, "Probably not a good idea to read at work."
I did.
And now, all these years later, I'm sharing it with you.
Everyone mostly gets to hear cancer through the caregivers’ eyes; at least that is how it is in my case. I have cancer. Stage 4 tubulocystic renal cell carcinoma to be exact, but most doctors just call it kidney cancer unclassified. To the cancer illiterate, I guess I should be dead by now. I’m not going to sugar coat it. I have been to hell and back, and I’ve got scars to prove it. Cancer changes you. It changed me into a better person, and I guess I owe it some gratitude.
Ya, it is that dramatic, the doctor walks in the room with your chart with that look of pity on his face and says “you have cancer”. This is where I began my 5 stages of grief as Kubler-Ross identified.
Stage 1: denial. I denied cancer for quite some time, and sometimes I still think I am denying it. Not like denying to give some guy your number, or denying that you have a test tomorrow. I would say I “put off” having cancer. I told it, hmm not today. Today I just want to be wild teenage Cassie and get into tons of trouble and have my parents just shake their heads at me. I denied all emotions and feelings. During each doctor's appointment when she would come in and say there are more tumors or there is no cure, without even seeing my face I knew the only word to describe it was numb. My mom and dad would ask all the questions that needed to be asked, but all I was thinking about was I need to get out of this stupid office and text my friends what time we are starting to tailgate. I’d get in the car and they’d make the routine calls to family members about the news that we just learned, but I just wanted to tell them to shut up already and drop it. This began stage 2.
Stage 2: anger. The only people who have seen my anger are the ones nearest and dearest to my heart. Oh and Ingrid from Rainbow Connection when I was yelling that I didn’t want to speak to anyone and that I just wanted to nap. There have been many screaming matches and tearful nights sleep. Anger is a nasty quality that can quickly put you into stage 4, or give you the will to fight straight to stage 5. Even though I hated it when the words came out of my mother’s mouth she is right, life isn’t fair. Bad things happen to great people, and great things happen to horrible people. It’s just the way God made the world to be, but I believe in my heart that the good will always prevail. I could sit for days and try to figure out if it was all the prepackaged foods I shoved my face with, or the HPV shot that was supposed to prevent me from having cancer, but I will never know how I got cancer. It hurts me thinking about it, but some people don’t care if someone is healthy or dying. I have come across some very ignorant people in this world and I hope I was never one of them. People have said that they didn’t want to live with me because I have cancer, or that I pull out the ”cancer card” to make people feel bad. News flash, they don’t hand out cancer cards with your terminal prognosis. Also, there has been a nasty rumor going around that if someone with cancer sneezes on you, you’re going to catch cancer. Sorry in advance during allergy season. Anger causes my life to be quite disorganized, but I typically put on a good face and hide all the yelling for the ones that love me most.
Stage 3: bargaining. The “I promise I’ll be a better person if you take away this cancer.” This is the stage of sleepless nights and tear stained pillow cases. I’ve begged and pleaded and even said I’d do some crazy things in order to be cancer free. Unfortunately I haven’t found the right bargain yet because I still have cancer.
Stage 4: depression. My darkest days. After each surgery during my recovery I hit a point where I am just sick of being sick. My life always has to be halted because of this stupid disease, while everyone just gets to go on living. There are weeks where I don’t leave my dark room. Mom forces me to come downstairs for at least a few hours. I sit there, silent just staring, until finally a tear will drip down my cheek and I say I just want this day to be over. Then I kindly ask if I can go upstairs to my room again, and mom of course says yes. I know she can’t stand to see me like this and she just wants to snap me out of it, and I wish I could too. She will come in my room and I just lay there saying I hate feeling like this; I don’t want to do this anymore. I eat less and less and the numbers on the scale go lower and lower. I refuse to take my medication. I practically give up. I lay in the bath tub for hours just thinking it would be so easy to just go under the water and never come back up. I’d be pain free. Then I snap into reality and feel my pruned hands and get out of the tub and head to bed to begin this process the next day. Accomplishments are instantly turned negative in my mind. My body cannot heal quick enough. My mind is empty. Then my body and mind finally catch up to speed and I realize I have made a lot of progress and I can begin to do normal things again which lead straight into stage 5.
Stage 5: acceptance. My body is attacking me, rude I know, but it is. I can’t change the path that God has planned for me. In the famous words of Bill Cosby… “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it.” I’m pretty sure that’s what the man upstairs tells to everyone at some point in their life. I have accepted the fact that I have cancer, but don’t pity me. I live one hell of a life, and get to do some things that people can’t even dream about doing. I say this in the nicest way possible, I pity the person who hasn’t had something happen to them that has shook the entire ground that they walk on. Nobody can actually fully say “live like you were dying” until you have had a near death experience, because how do you know what you would do if you were going to die. In the wise words of Karen Hines, Everyone is going to die in the end, but they have the luxury of not having to think about it everyday. I have accepted that I could die from having cancer. The only thing that I can’t fully accept is the hurt that will be left behind after I am gone. I will be living large sitting next to Jesus with our toes in the water, “toes” in the sand. I worry for my parents, my sister, my brother, my family, friends, anyone who I am close to. I don’t want life to stop just because there is a void in their lives. I want people to always remember me for having a smile on my face even if it has been raining for days and my body is aching all over. I want to be remembered for being a great friend, daughter, sister, team mate. I want people to remember my outlandish stories. I want people to know that I didn’t suffer, that I was a fighter. That I never gave up. That when I got a tattoo that said strength it meant that I am strong.
One would think that you go through the 5 stages and are done and just live in blissful acceptance, but that is a load of crap. I go through the stages on a constant basis. Sometimes all in a week, or sometimes within an hour. I have learned each time how to better deal with each stage and make the graceful transitions between them until finally calming into some form of compliance that I have cancer. There is no cure currently, but I am going to live each day like it’s my last and you better either hop on my crazy train or watch out because I just might run you over.
I love you both very much, and I don't know if I ever thank you enough for helping me through all my "stages of grief" even if you don't know which one I am in at times. Maybe now you can just say "hey cass... 1-5?"
xoxo Cassie
Over the years, I have read this email more times than I can count. Every time, I discover something new in her words. I hear her humor, her frustration, her determination, and most of all, her love for the people in her life.
Now I think about how much I wish every young adult facing a cancer diagnosis had someone who understood what they were going through. Someone who could sit beside them, laugh with them, cry with them, and remind them that cancer is a chapter, not the story.
Cassie understood that long before we had the words to make it our mission.
And if there's one thing I hope you take away from her words, it's this: Don't wait for life to shake your ground before you appreciate the people standing beside you.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving,
XO Karen
