Though being alone can be lonely
without a love to share your life with,
whether you’re seventeen or seventy
or ever older, someone to love and
care about you through the highs and
lows of your life —
but for me being alone was advantageous
when a blood cancer tried to kill me three
years ago, and for reasons unknown to me,
I just didn’t care about the cancer or dying
and never had a day when I was sad about it.
If I’d had a girlfriend or a wife during that
year of cancer and many treatments and
the real possibility that the cancer was going
to kill me, I would have been worried about
the effects my cancer was having on her
and the real possibility of leaving her,
my love, forever, alone and without me.
But since I was alone, the thought that I could
die from the nefarious cancer did not bother me.
If death came, it was easy to let go when
I had no one who would be worried about me or I
would be worried about leaving.
One could think it would have been comforting
to have a girlfriend or a wife for support during
those times, but as you may have deduced by
the previous paragraphs, my answer is a
resounding no. It was easier for me to face that
unexpected cancer fate alone.
The only sadness I had was when I saw young
women in their twenties at the cancer center,
who at such a young age were stricken with
cancers.
And I imagined how horrifying it must have
been to be a young woman at essentially the
beginning of her life not knowing if she were
going to live or die, to live a full life, or
possibly be dead before she lived thirty
years of life. That to me was heartbreakingly
sad and so painfully tragic.
Bob Boyd
