It is very common for parents to have to break the news of their child’s illness to people who have no inkling of what has happened. The resulting vignettes are like scenes from a sick farce. The person receiving the news cannot cope and often ends up in tears. You, the parent, then end up consoling them and helping them come to terms with your problem. It is disturbing and very unsettling the first time it occurs. It happened a number of times and we became used to this reaction.
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Another common reaction, and one which I am sure is experienced quite widely by parents was that of denial by friends, acquaintances and strangers. Denial is a common reaction to events which we cannot comprehend. There were many people who avoided me during and after Max’s leukaemia. I think that a lot of the time they just did not know what to say. This was outside their framework. Guess what? It was outside ours as well. We had no training for this. I never went on that imaginary course ‘Childhood Cancer - How to cope when it strikes’. I meant to but what with that holiday and the pressure of work, I just couldn't find the time. Silly really, because it would have been very helpful.
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People today often experience tragedies second or third hand. We generally live a life which shows remote suffering through the television screen or the newspaper. In the West the death or potential death of a child is no longer part of our worldview. This has happened in the last couple of generations but is not so in many parts of the world where many families still lose at least one or more children. We have lost touch. We see starving children daily on television but that is ‘somewhere else’. We see abandoned and mistreated children but for many this is not our problem. The reality very rarely touches you. When that reality jumps from the screen or the newspaper into the real world it can be too much to bear.
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Often when the subject of Max’s cancer arose in conversation the denial manifested itself by a total rejection of the fact. The reaction was as if you had announced that your son just had a bad cough. People often felt that they must not react to the subject. I am not sure if this is because they were worried that they might upset you by mentioning his cancer or because the acceptance of its reality was too horrific. If it was because they were worried about our feelings, this is totally ludicrous when examined in the cold light of day. We were living through or had lived through Max’s cancer and did so day and night for many years. We could not be upset by the mention of it, it was the one focus around which our lives revolved.
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It is better to say something, anything, rather than nothing at all. The words might not be right, they might sound awkward, they might be inadequate but the fact that you are prepared to confront a cancer or bereavement is better then pretending that it is not there. Pretending that it never happened is selfish. It protects you and does nothing for the person on the receiving end.
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