I recently read that after
successful cancer surgery in 1964,
John Wayne said he had licked the big C.
I then decided to write this poem.
You have led all your life, as a life should be led.
When you put on a pound, a few kilos you’d shed.
You treated your body, as a temple, a shrine.
Never over indulged. Never drank too much wine.
Cigarettes and all drugs you avoided like sin.
For you knew you get out only what you put in.
When a pal was annoyed, or was misunderstood,
You would walk through hot coals just to make it all good.
Now you have the report, as you read it you see.
And your hand starts to shake, they have found the big C.
It’s a word you are told, not a sentence these days,
But the fear in your mind isn’t going away.
You are asking: Why me? I have lived a good life!
What have I done so wrong, to have earned all this strife?
So they fill you with drugs, turn the chemo up high.
As your hair starts to fall you would rather just die.
In a wheelchair you sit, as they push you around.
While you’re resting in bed friends and family abound.
When you weigh up the pros and the cons to compare
You see patients galore. So much worse. It’s unfair.
There are so many here with real cause to be mad.
There’s a man lost his sight, and that old bloke looks bad.
Pretty girl next to him – she’s been shot in the head.
And the boyfriend on ice, has been filled full of lead.
So you no longer say, why was I picked for this?
You prefer to give thanks for the pains you have missed.
That old bloke just died. Left this life less than thrilled.
But your hair will grow back and your life you’ll rebuild.
The young girl and her friend both now lie in the ground.
Such a waste of young lives; it’s a truth too profound.
You now value each day you can still share with friends
And thank God that big C did not signal the end!
© Marty Langenberg January 2013
