Kindness Revealed by Cancer
One of the quiet revelations of a terminal cancer diagnosis is how it rearranges the way people see you , and how they behave. Those once distant or distracted often disclose a hidden gentleness, as if some curtain has been pulled back and a softer light now fills the room.
Hormone therapy, designed to build a barricade around the disease, carries its own peculiar burdens: flashes of irritation, forgetfulness that blurs the edges of thought, intrusive reflections that won’t be stilled, and a bone-deep laziness born of a body waging war with itself. A strange “why bother?” attitude can settle in, uninvited.
And yet, even as the body falters, the world around begins to hum to a different rhythm. Doctor’s surgeries, hospital corridors, consulting rooms, even casual encounters on the street, seem to shift into a gentler register, as if an unseen conductor had raised his baton and signalled a new movement. Life, unchanged in its structure, suddenly breathes with grace.
Strangers offer more of themselves than expected. Acquaintances once on the periphery step forward with unwavering loyalty. Professionals who might once have hurried through their routines pause, listen, and offer more than mere duty. The world, in all its ordinariness, takes on a tender hue.
Of course, not everyone changes. Some glide through life as if behind glass, fixed on their own path, unmoved by the suffering of others. But perhaps they serve a purpose too, their indifference sets the stage on which kindness shines more brightly. The fabric of the world is no different; it is our awareness that deepens, revealing compassion woven invisibly into its threads.
A terminal diagnosis, then, is not only a herald of fear or sadness. It is also a vantage point granted to few — a place from which we see life as it truly is: selfish and luminous, flawed and astonishingly kind, brutal and breathtakingly beautiful.
“What a person desires is unfailing love.” — Proverbs 19:22 (NIV)
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