It's always something. - Roseanna Roseannadanna (Gilda Radner)
And of course it is. Something- its a darn nuisance. Sometimes it's soul shattering. But it's always something. It's real life.
After Gilda Radner left SNL where she created some unforgettable funny women characters- Roseanna Roseannadanna, Emily Litella- she set out to create a life for herself. For a decade she had been a successful workaholic as life whizzed by. Falling in love with Gene Wilder helped her realise the pleasure of lowering gears. By the time they married in 1984, she wanted to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Always observant and knowing rich material when she found it, she began a book called 'Portrait of the Artist as a Housewife', a collection of stories, poems, and vignettes celebrating domestically and the humor inherit in toaster ovens and plumbers. It would have been hilarious.
But...real life grabbed her attention with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and a grittier book emerged, 'Its Always Something', a defiantly irreverent, moving memoir. Like other women who struggle with life threatening illness, like breast cancer, Gilda mourned "my lost joy, my happiness, my exhilaration with life". The day before her diagnosis, life stretched before her, luminous in its limitless possibilities. The moment after being told she had cancer, life's dimensions shrank to twenty four hour stretches.
In a moving essay contained in Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul, Judith Hooper rightly admonishes us: "We go around thinking that real life is about adding a rec room to the basement, but this is not about real life. Cancer is real life. When accept cancer, it is as if new systems with the organism automatically open- like the oxygen masks that automatically drop in your lap on a 747 in an emergency. When you walk this earth on borrowed time, each day on the calendar is a beloved friend you know for only a short time"
You begin to live- Why must we find a lump in out breast before this occurs? DO you know? Because I certainly don't. But I do know a wonderful woman who was very active at her children's school for many years. The hours she put into her PTA related work was the equivalent of a full-time but unpaid second job. When she mad the terrible discovery that she had breast cancer, she admitted to a few close friends that ina strange way she was relieved. Cancer meant she could start saying "No", create boundaries, and finally put down the school committee without guilt. Now she could ransom back her life. After all, no one expects a woman fighting breast cancer to do anything but take care of herself. Of course , she was right. During this time I wanted scream and cry- it was almost too much to take in. Yes it's always something. But it doesn't always have to have your name on it. I pray we never find a lump, but I pray just as fervently that we never squander or surrender another precious day for whatever reason.
And if you've already found a lump, I pray that you'll grow whole and old in joy, peace and grace, gifting those who love you most many years with your wisdom. Heaven knows we need it.
