Taking Time Out: Lessons From Cancer
Despite all the medical advances of our time, none of us can buy full immunity from life's worst surprises. CBS News Sunday Morning contributor Joel Sartore says what we can do is learn from our experiences, and maybe share those lessons with others.
We all have our ways of marking time. As a National Geographic photographer, my life is measured one from one story to the next. I bought my first house in Nebraska while I was on assignment shooting America's Gulf Coast. My son was born in the middle of a long story about the Endangered Species Act. My daughter came along with a pack of gray wolves.
Twenty stories later, though, it's the story on Alaska's North Slope that I'll remember most. It was about the loss of wilderness and innocence — and the story during which my wife got cancer. That's the one that made time stand still.
We met in college, at a blues bar. She had long blonde hair and thought I was funny.
Beautiful, graceful and patient, she has remained my muse for 22 years, despite the thousands of times I've forced her to be photographed. She may have gotten tired of it now and then.
The picture-taking pretty much stopped though on the day she found that tumor in her right breast. It was the size of a hen's egg. Weirdly, it was Thanksgiving. By Christmas, the chemo had her weak and bedridden. Some days she was so sick she couldn't watch TV. One day she couldn't even talk.
Early detection saves lives. But ours was not early. By the time you can feel it yourself, it's bigger than the doctors want it to be. A surprise baby had distracted her from two annual mammograms. Now I'd pay anything to go back in time.
Cancer is a thief. It steals time. Our days are already short with worry. Then comes this relentless disease, unfair as a hailstorm at the harvest time. We instinctively know to brace for the worst.
Kathy went for chemo every week. The oncologist took blood, gave percentages, told us we were doing great. But he's been treating cancer patients a long time. We know he just doesn't know, isn't sure, and in his eyes I see his worries. He carries our burden, too.
Now, forgive me for saying this, but cancer can also be a blessing. An amazing experience that forces us to make amends, to set things right.
For example, cancer made me a better father. My work had made me a stranger to my three kids. They got along just fine without me. I was so bad that once I tried to get Kathy's midwife to induce labor just to get me back out on the road the next day.
But now I've changed, and for good. I appreciate what I have instead of lamenting what I don't ... a new life and a new way of seeing, all from one malicious lump.
On our drives home from the doctor, I'd often look around at stoplights. I'd see people talking on their cell phones, putting on makeup, eating. They're all in a hurry. It all seems so important.
But is it?
In the end, each of us has so little time. We have less of it than we can possibly imagine. And even though it turns out that Kathy's cancer has not spread, and her prognosis is good, we try to make it all count now, appreciating every part of every day.
Sometimes, we sit together on our porch at sunset. We don't talk much. We just hold hands. We listen to the crickets chirp, soft and cautious, as if they know that first frost might come tonight. We stay a while, until the last of the light is gone, until we can't see anything. Until we're just two hearts in the darkness. We're in no hurry at all.