How we talk about Cancer

This is not a post about how I haven't posted in forever. Or about wondering if there's anyone still listening to this thing. Although if there was dust on the internet there'd be a lot sitting on this site for sure!

I just read a news article about a scholarship being made to honor a Womanist Theologian who recently died. I'm being vague because I'm not interested in slamming that article in any way. But they said something in there that bothered me. When avoiding saying that she died, they said "she succumbed to leukemia."

I do get worked up sometimes about euphemisms regarding death. Maybe it is because I am a chaplain, often helping people work through their grief, but using words that avoid saying straight out what someone is suffering from annoys me. I have read other things debating how we talk about cancer. People talk a lot about "the fight against cancer." Like I can punch it in the nose and knock it out. This can be empowering, but the downside is, when someone "loses" the fight, it makes them, well, a loser. Weak. Failed, somehow.

This time, someone "succumbed" to cancer. So I guess people are learning not to say she lost the fight, but is succumbing any different?

 Going to our good friend Merriam-Webster, we can learn that succumb may mean:

1 : to yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire

2 : to be brought to an end (such as death) by the effect of destructive or disruptive forces 

 For definition #1 it gives the example of "succumb to temptation." This definitely is a weakness, to succumb. It means the other force was stronger, that I failed somehow to overcome, that I lacked strength. Is this what it means to die of cancer? That I was weak? I failed?

  

Spoiler alert: we all die. It stinks, I know, but it is true. Might be cancer, might be a bus, might be heart weakening at the age of 142, but something will eventually result in your death. And, perhaps even worse, the death of those you love. If that means you are weak, then we are all weak together, and there isn't really any point in making it look like one person failed more than another in their quest to live forever.

Why not just say "She died from leukemia"? Or if you like making the disease the fault, "leukemia killed her." Or if you need another person to blame, "the doctors failed to come up with a cure because of research budget cuts so blame the president for her death." Or whatever you feel like. But be direct, and unless she died because she drank a big cup of leukemia and then ate a sandwich of weakness, do not say things that make it sound like her fault. Cause you might be next, anyways, and how would you like to be remembered? As weak and succumbing? Or as a human who led a good life?