cancer.

I found out on Monday that my Grandmother has cancer, now for the third time. It spread from the breast cancer she developed, which led to uteran, and now the cancer is in her neck. Normally, Grandma says that she's "putting the issue on a shelf"; she doesn't describe herself as fighting cancer. She sees cancer as a part of her body, as something to embrace and remove as peacefully as she lives. She faces it when she is with her doctor. When she is not with her doctor, she volunteers with a not-for-profit organization and acts out what it is to be an amazing woman. She lives with cancer, not for it.

This time when Grandma told me, she said that she wouldn't be able to put it on her "shelf". I was shocked, and sad, and developed a greater, more painful understanding of mortality than before. My mom says that you never get used to death. I don't want to. I just don't understand why it needs to be a part of life. Not yet I don't.

Both of my Grandmothers are my stereotypical heroes. Both have lived exceptional lives. Both have had breast cancer. What does this mean for me? That's what I have been considering in the last few days.

Currently I'm in a class called "God, Reason and Evil" which asks the question, how can both evil and God exist? My only answer so far is that good and evil are not opposites; they can, and do, coexist, and this can be peaceful. Somehow. If you were to ask my professor right now,  he would say that I'm presently living out a theodicy.

A theodicy is (according to my prof) an attempt to explain the goodness of God in light of evil.
The process of theodicy is (according to my prof) nearly systematic. We start with the experience of suffering. This experience causes us to consider our own mortality. Immediately, we attempt to stop the suffering. When we fail to do so (which, on our very own, we will), we try to understand the suffering. Understanding the suffering is not the same as stopping it.  To understand the suffering, we discuss with others the nature of evil, which causes us to discuss the order of things, and this in itself surpasses human understanding. Once we are beyond human understanding, we are exploring theology. When we explore theology, we explore God.

That's not to say that the experience of suffering requires, or even leads to, a belief in God. Taking a look at a great percentage of this world, I can guarantee that it often does not lead to a belief in God. But it causes us to look beyond ourselves.

When I found out about Grandma's cancer, and that she feels this will be her last 'go', I was devestated and, let's use the word, depressed. I realized that everybody dies. Not excluding those I love most. I considered my life, my own experiences, my husband. The fact that I could never live well if I lost him. And then I resolved to make soup. A lot of soup. When people are sick, they need soup; what's better than homemade soup? My husband and I enlisted and searched through recipes, and borrowed the expertise from my husband's mother and whipped up her own Leek and Potato Soup and Vegetable Soup. And muffins. Carrot muffins. And a scarf, I wanted to knit a scarf. I wanted to stop the suffering, I wanted to take control of the situation and do everything in my own power to end it. Until I realized that two batches of soup - although homemade, although delicious, although healthy - are not going to take away cancer. I cannot end the suffering. And I broke down again: why her? why me? why our family? why? why death? Can there not be a world that has only life? Why did God...

And somewhere in there, I found peace. I am fearful, and nervous, but this is not in my control. I wish it were in my control. My grandmother is on radiation and I planned a visit - and now I have an awful cold. I tried to defeat the cold and loaded up on Vitamin C for the day of our visit - and on this day, she ended up in the hospital.

I think the peace comes from knowing that although I'm not in control, neither is the cancer. God is.