SIGN: Three Women on the Couch
I joined a cancer support group at the Wellness Community in October of 2003. I had finished my treatment in August, but had a total meltdown one day when a colleague was rude and insensitive about my ordeal. I found myself sitting on the floor of the faculty bathroom crying uncontrollably. It sounds a little ridiculous, but where else do you go when you lose it at a high school where you are constantly surrounded by students and other faculty? I went home early that day -- once I calmed down a bit. Milissa took charge and made an appointment with a social worker at Dana Farber (waste of time) and then found potential groups for me to join at the Wellness Community and Fenway Community Health. I think I ended up at the Wellness Community simply because that group had more immediate availability.
Three women sitting on a couch signify my support group at Wellness. I have been thinking a lot lately about icons, symbols and signs. I like to reflect on how an image in my mind stands for larger experiences. It is like medieval mnemonic devices for memorizing--my own mind as a filing cabinet of images that stand for larger experiences. I have been reflecting on this idea in my work. I have been working on distilling out parts that somehow can stand for the whole image (or experience) or, conversely, photographing the overall scene as a point of reference for the scene as constructed by multiple frames. I’m still working it out.
Anyway, I am preparing to leave my support group at the Wellness Community. It is time for me to leave because I am ready, or at least trying to be ready, to accept myself as a survivor of cancer. I need to believe that cancer is behind me. Going to a group every week where people are so sick is debilitating and guilt-inducing and at this point is not helping me get better. I care very deeply for the members of this group and the decision to leave has been difficult to make.
I have a very distinct image in my head of the moment when I first walked into the room where the group meets. That entire meeting is incredibly vivid visually to me. I don’t necessarily remember exactly what was said, except that people were so kind and understanding. But, I do have an image in my mind of everyone seated in the room. Most important in my memory are the three women who sat on the couch against the right wall. This is my sign of the group. It stands for my experience of the group, the things that the group gave to me, the pain that I have experienced watching people become more ill and eventually die; it signifies my own battle with guilt, fear, anger and finally, it stands for the power of the group and the great gift I have received from it: the opportunity to know extraordinary people whom I might otherwise never have met.
The three women sitting on the couch were Susan, Shirlee and Mary. I remember recounting my story of cancer—the diagnosis, treatment and eventual emotional breakdown after my treatment ended. These three women, each with recurring metastatic disease, offered me such kindness and compassion and genuine understanding. Each person in the group was extraordinary in their sympathetic consideration. I remember each of them speaking at length, responding without judgment to me and my experience. I remember feeling terrified of recurrence and hearing that each of them had experienced this horror exacerbated my own fears and activated my guilt because my condition seemed so insignificant compared to theirs. But, they did not compare. They listened attentively. They responded compassionately toward me and my suffering without drawing comparison. They offered stories of their experiences to me as a way of establishing a commonality from which I might feel less alone and isolated. It helped. It helped a lot.
Of these three women on the couch, one is still a member of the group. One has left to conceive and bear a child. One has just passed.
Cancer is awful. People can be wonderful. The three women on the couch will always signify this for me—people can care for one another and when they do, it is an awesome thing.
