Parenting with Cancer
I need to begin by acknowledging that this is uncomfortable to write. It is uncomfortable because this piece is about being alongside someone who I love as they died, and about the experience of living with and alongside cancer for three years.
It is not uncomfortable to talk about Nat’s death in and of itself — sad, yes, but uncomfortable, no. Rather I cannot help but feel that there is a risk that this process of reflection is in a way exploitative.
For me, a piece of writing, a film, a photograph, a piece of storytelling, any of these run the risk of being exploitative when the agency and true voice of the subjects is limited by those responsible for the production of those pieces.
Given that Nat is dead, there is no way that her voice can be heard authentically in any pieces I write about these last three years. Instead it is up to me to express her experience, and my experience alongside her, in a way which is authentic and which truly reflects our experiences of what has happened. Furthermore, I must work to ensure that I avoid misconstruing those experiences to fit ideas and concepts which may be of importance to me but of little or passing relevance to what actually happened. This to me is why writing about this experience is uncomfortable and why I feel the need to articulate the reasons.
But if this process is so uncomfortable, why do I want to do it? Well, to try to give meaning and shape to what has just happened. Maybe I should just give myself a break, a voice in my head says to me, after all you had been together nearly 15 years, surely that should exempt yourself from anxieties about exploitation, but I can’t. I suspect that for others who have been through something similar that that uneasiness, when it comes to talking “about what has happened”, is a common one.
So, there we have it, a disclaimer of sorts. For me a statement of the tension which writing about this brings. For you, the reader, an understanding about what it is that has motivated me to sit down and write.
With all of that said, I feel like I can make a start.
Back before Covid, a colleague and I used to run (in-person!) a training at Cumberland Lodge with cohorts of Chevening Scholars who were studying in the UK. The weekend retreat was intended to encourage the participants to consider current trends in Religion and Belief in Global Affairs. My colleague and I were brought in to facilitate a day of workshops and discussions which were designed to explore the challenges and opportunities of engaging with Religion and Belief.
Our day of workshops culminated in an activity which, for want of a catchier name, we called the Community Consultation. Without going into the methodology, the aim of the activity was to encourage participants to ‘slow down’ and look at a selected scenario in close detail and in doing so to look at the emotions, instincts and power dynamics which might be at play, and which they might feel in a challenging situation. For instance, we used the approach to explore how faith identity can have an impact the facilitation of dialogue when participants are living in conflict zones where religion and belief defines that conflict.
As a facilitator, it is not uncommon to find oneself in a situation where we feel under-pressure to make fast decisions. More often than not, we need to make those decisions in the moment, and with incomplete information. Moreover, we often feel (and sometimes with good reason!) that if we make the wrong decision that we will negatively impact the outcome of the process which we ourselves have been brought in to ensure has a successful outcome. It is these dynamics which the Community Consultation is designed to enable participants to reflect on. Furthermore, the workshop can help a participant to recognize their own patterns of behaviour in challenging situations and offers an opportunity to think about whether these approaches are effective and how they might handle a similar situation differently in the future.
I was thinking about all of this recently as I joined the steering group of a new project, Parenting With Cancer, being run by the amazing Fruit Fly Collective. The steering group on this project is a mix of cancer professionals (Cancer Specialist Nurses, hospice staff, psychologists and many other professionals) and those with a current lived experience of parenting with cancer (either as someone with cancer themselves, or like me as the partner of someone with cancer).
The project is aiming to develop a comprehensive programme of support for parents living with cancer and to identify the most effective way of practically supporting a parent with cancer. The hope is that by the end of the funding that there will be a wide-reaching network of parents able to support one another and signpost others to access the help that they need.
As a group, we discussed a range of issues which it was felt it was important that the new network would provide support with. We talked about issues of family dynamics, parenting skills and self-care strategies. However, unsurprisingly and correctly, the bulk of the conversation was about communication skills.
Nat and I are fortunate to have two children, at time of writing aged five and nine. Common with (I would imagine) all parents in a situation where one parent has a life-shortening condition, there is tremendous anxiety about how to talk to children about what is happening and what is going to happen.
We always knew that there would come a day when we would have to tell the boys what was going to happen, but not telling them didn’t make it any easier when we did tell them. When the day came, Nat was in hospital and it fell to me to tell them by myself. However, what confounded me when I did was how far wide of the mark I was about what their reactions would be, and, just as critically, how I myself would feel in that moment. I am not going to pretend that it was easy, it wasn’t, but looking back (and even at the time) I can say that it was not what I anticipated it would be.
A journey through cancer is full of such moments. Moments when you know something awful is about to happen, that you cannot stop that awful thing happening, but knowing that you need to get through that awful moment to get to the other side. Over time, I think that Nat and I got better at understanding that truth about parenting with cancer. More than that, we got better at understanding the dynamics at play in those moments and what we all needed as a family and as individuals to get through those moments. Being able to be reflective, to look back at what had happened (and say how well we had done, and I say that because I really believe that it’s important that parents in crisis situations give themselves a break), to recognize biases, and to develop a capacity to course correct in terms of the approaches to be used in the next “moment”, all of this resonates so strongly with my experiences as a facilitator.
As much as it is possible to be grateful given all that has happened, I am grateful to be part of the Parenting with Cancer steering group. I want to be able to contribute our experiences to the shaping of this important network. Not just that, for me, being part of that group is going to be a chance to think, reflect and internalize what it is that has happened to me during Nat’s journey with cancer.
I would love to hear what you think!
