The Cancer Trees

When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer just over two years ago, I remember taking the dog for a walk in our local park. Truth to tell I was feeling pretty down and not a little sorry for myself. Anyone reading this who is unlucky enough to be part of the cancer crew will know the early weeks after diagnosis are a tricky time. Suddenly your life is not only upended, but there seems a very real prospect of it being actually ended.

Coming to terms with stage IV cancer

Over the years we’ve all inevitably accrued inaccurate or just plain false facts about cancer. Different cancers respond in very different ways to treatment, some really are a death sentence while others can be treated very successfully. I soon learnt my cancer was stage four and as everybody knows there’s no stage five. Did this mean I was already in the departure lounge on journey I had no interest in taking?

Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst

Doctors' prognoses can be bewilderingly vague. I was told I had possibly a 50% chance of being cured but even if the doctors with their knives, gadgets, potions, and prescriptions managed to boot my cancer into touch, there was a very real possibility of it making a most unwelcome return. Then I’m thinking, isn’t it a fact that when cancer comes back, you have just months to live?

There I was with this jumble of opinions, inaccurate facts and fantasy bubbling up in my brain. Desperately hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

Watching time pass through the maple leaves

With all this going on in my head, the mutt and I strolled past two Japanese maple trees whose leaves had turned flame red as fall set about painting the landscape. Some of the leaves had already fallen and were littering the ground and inevitably I started wondering whether I’d still be around to see the Autumn miracle next year or whether the leaves would be falling without my close attention.

Thereafter these Acers, as I believe they are called, have become my cancer trees. For reasons I can’t quite explain every time I walk by them, I take a picture to have some kind of record. This year the leaves are now gone, and the branches are bare. I look forward to Spring with the leaves appearing sometime in March. It’s almost like these trees are keeping me alive.

An inspiring and life-affirming message

In the UK there’s a well-known and much-loved radio DJ called Mark Radcliffe who was told he had cancer at around the same time I got the news. He had the misfortune to develop head and neck cancer which kept him off the airwaves, though he is back at work now.

In the UK, and perhaps in the US too, it’s quite common to see park benches bearing an inscription to commemorate the lives of a family or friend who has passed on.

Radcliffe has just had a bench dedicated to him though he is still very much in the land of the living. The inscription reads: ‘Mark Radcliffe loved sitting here ... and still does thanks to advances in cancer research.’

Mark’s bench, with its life-affirming message, is in the grounds of Manchester University where he studied. It’s also part of a campaign that is attempting to raise $25m towards the cost of building a new cancer research facility.

Although his bench is slightly unusual Mark feels more benches should celebrate the living.

Seeing significance in the unremarkable

Close to my cancer trees, there’s a bench that often has flowers strapped to it to commemorate a much-loved husband and granddad. They carefully tape the flowers to the back of the bench so a tired dog walker can sit and take their ease. This morning that person was me where I got to thinking about cancer trees and cancer benches.

Three unremarkable wooden objects that in some way have become freighted with significance. Perhaps you too have objects that resonate in a way you can’t quite explain.