A Pinch of Tolkien and a Dash of Cancer

One of the most beautiful snippets from Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies comes from The Return of the King.  In the movie, Pippin, the most boisterous and easygoing Hobbit, is commanded to maturely sing in front of Lord Denethor in Gondor.  And man, can that Hobbit sing!  While, Pippin’s, aka Billy Boyd’s, vocals are truly amazing, the lyrics of the song are even more stirring to someone who just loves all things Middle-earth and Tolkien.

However, I can’t say my only attraction to them is my deeply obsessive fan love for Tolkien’s literature (you did pick up that I am a fan, right?).  Somehow, cancer gets thrown into the mix too when I think of this particular song.  Either, cancer sullies a bit of every aspect of one’s life, or every aspect of one’s life tends to give you more insight into one’s cancer experience.  I like to go with the latter option; it’s a bit healthier.

So, the lyrics are:

Home is behind
The world ahead
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadow
To the edge of night
Until the stars are all alight

Mist and shadow
Cloud and shade
Hope shall fail
All shall fade

When cancer is ushered into your life, quite unexpectedly and totally uninvited, you do feel that “home is behind.”  It’s behind you, and you can’t go back.  Even if you turn around, put blinders on, cover your eyes, and escape into the past or a side project—even when you’re facing the past—you can’t go back, and something will eventually pull the rug out from under your feet sooner than later.

“The world ahead” when faced with cancer is a downright scary place to be.  Whether you’re 5 years old or 45, you are diagnosed or a loved one, or you admit fear or put on a brave face, in the end, you want something or someone to cling to while you face the wide unknown world ahead.

That unknown world, Leukemia, brain tumors, breast cancer, Lymphoma, Neuroblastoma, or something else, has so many possibilities, weird medical rituals, loathsome lingo and jargon, and so “many paths to tread” emotionally, spiritually, and physically. 

A lot of it is dark at first.  You just want some light to shine on the circumstances, to cheer things up a bit.  You start racing towards that light, “to the edge of night,” the horizon.  Yet, just before you are there, you realize you still don’t know what the new day will bring.  Do you really want to travel further?  Will night fade and bring good news?  Or is the night all that is left to enjoy, because when day comes it shows what we don’t want to see?

That’s some heavy stuff there.  “Hope shall fail.”  Sounds encouraging, right?  Yeah, not really.  But it is the truth, and I have a profound respect for the truth regardless of whether I like it or not.  It’s really hard to not lose hope.  In many ways, hope is what keeps humanity going on all levels of social structures.  Individuals, families, towns, regions, governments, and nations all have hope.  Yet, we lose hope too.

The point really isn’t that hope ends, or that we stop hoping.  Instead, the point is summed up by “All shall fade.”  If all does end, then hope must run its natural course, just like our bodies.  Both will fail and end.  It’s a natural process.  If we can accept this process as natural and with as much grace as humanly possible, then life starts to look better, even from the cancer perspective.  I didn’t say easy though.  Still, if we accept that “all shall fade,” living life with an emphasis on life and not on escaping death is easier to achieve.

In the end, though rather dark, this song reminds me of the natural process of life, hope, and death.  Considering I’ve been forced into an intimate acquaintance with all three, I think I’ve tried over time to balance my outlook on life.  “All shall fade.”  It’s a simple but hard truth to learn and accept into one’s personal life.