This is a special memorial day for me. Fifteen years ago, on May 24, 2009, my wife Kathleen Ross died of cancer after an eleven-month cancer journey we took together. We had a wonderful marriage, and the last eleven months were beautiful as well as painful. During this time we grew closest to each other, to our family and friends, and to God. Hence the title of this book I am working on: "Nothing Can Separate Us," which is taken from Paul's letter to Romans, 8:34..
This book is based on a caringbridge blog we wrote for friends and family. I started writing this book and editing this book on May 1, the first day of the sabbatical that Jill and taking--a much needed break from our housing justice work.
A friend asked me how I am feeling today and my response was I feel blessed that I had Kathleen in my life for twenty years. She was my soul mate and best friend as well as my wife. She taught how to live, love and face life-threatening illness and death as a Christians. I am excited about sharing her witness with others and hopefully inspire and encourage you in your life journey. All of will face death at some point in our lives, and most of us will accompany someone facing death. My hope is that this book will help prepare us to see death and illness not only as an inevitability but also as opportunity to deepen our relationship with God and those we love.
This is a draft of the opening to this book. It will include not only my cancer journey with my wife Kathleen, but also with my current wife Jill, who had a similar kind of cancer (lymphoma) but is now cancer-free, thanks be to God and good medical treatment.
I'll probably share passages from it during the course of the summer. Please feel free to share your thoughts about what I have written, particularly if you or a loved one has faced or is facing cancer.
“Nothing Can Separate Us”
A Cancer Journey of Love and Faith
By Dr.
Anthony Manousos and Rev. Kathleen Ross
I've told you this so that my peace will be with you. In the world you'll have
trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world. — John 16:33.
I am convinced that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created
thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. —Romans 8:34- 39.
Live your life as if
everything that happens to you is what you prayed for.—Gene Hoffman, Quaker peace activist.
I started this book when
my wife Kathleen Ross and I took a cancer journey together from June of 2008 until the summer of 2009, when she
passed away at the City of Hope. It describes how we coped with the challenges
of cancer, how we grew
spiritually, and how we faced death and its aftermath together in the spirit of
love and faith. I hope that this
book will help others to experience some of the amazing grace and love that we were blessed with during our
20 years of marriage and especially during the final year when we came closest to each other, to God and to our dear friends and
family. I have also added a chapter about the grieving process and discovering
a new life with my amazing new wife, Jill Shook. We also went on a cancer
journey!
Kathleen was a Methodist
pastor for 26 years, and I am a Quaker educator, writer, and peace activist. While deeply rooted
in Christianity, we were active in the interfaith
community and had many close friends from various faith traditions—Muslim,
Jewish, Buddhist, Bahai, Hindu, Sikh, etc.—who gave us love and support during
our cancer journey. Our story
show how many people of faith have a heart-felt realization that we are all one
family, and act accordingly.
This book consists of writings that Kathleen and I published in our caringbridge blog, Kathleen’s private journal, and my unpublished writings. The opening
section by Kathleen was published in the December [2008] issue of Circuit West,
the now defunct Methodist newspaper.
During
our cancer journey, we learned a lot that I’d like to share before you plunge
into our story.
It
is important to find an oncologist you can trust and relate to.
Competence is essential, but so is having a doctor who will listen and take
your concerns seriously. Everyone has different needs, depending on age and
other factors. We were blessed to have an oncologist who was a perfect fit for
us: he was upbeat and gave us the emotional support we needed, along with excellent
treatment. He listened, he respected us, and he even invited us to his home for
dinner since he had come to regard my wife as his pastor. On the other hand,
some doctors are competent but insensitive. A friend of mine is in his 80s and
has a slow-growing form of cancer that could kill him in five years. His
oncologist is giving him aggressive treatment that is severely affecting the
quality of his life, leaving him weak and depressed. My friend pushed back and told his doctor. “At
my age, I can expect to live only another 9 more years. I have only a 30%
chance of reaching my 90th birthday. So why should I take treatment
that makes me miserable just to prolong my life by a couple of years? Why not
give me a reduced dose so I can enjoy my life, even if it’s a little shorter as
a result? ” His doctor was not sympathetic to this argument and insisted on the
more aggressive treatment. It is important to find a doctor who will treat the
whole person, not just the disease. Samuel H. Golter, one of City of Hope's early
leaders, coined the phrase, “There is no profit in curing the body if, in the process, we
destroy the soul.” Those words became City of Hope's credo. It should be the
creed of every doctor.
Find a supportive community, whether religious or a secular support group like the
Wellness Center. In an article entitled “What Churches Offer That Nones [non-church-goers) Long For” (NY Times, June 23,2024), Jessica Gross stressed the importance of having a support community like a church when going through a life crisis, such as a life-threatening disease. She wrote:
“After months of reading about this massive
change [the shift away from religion in the US], and having had quite a few
deep and very moving conversations with some of the over 7,000 readers who
responded to my initial call-out about becoming less religious over time, the one aspect
of religion in America that I unquestionably see as an overall positive
for society is the ready-made supportive community that churchgoers can access…..I
asked every sociologist I interviewed whether communities created around
secular activities outside of houses of worship could give the same level of
wraparound support that churches, temples and mosques are able to offer. Nearly
across the board, the answer was no.”
Gross believes that non-religious support groups like
churches may be created in the future, but it hasn’t happened yet. What
sustained us during our cancer journey was the loving support we received from
our religious communities, the Quakers and the Methodists.
Explore
complimentary alternative medical practices, such as
exercise, meditation, message, healthy food, “laughter yoga.” These are primarily to enhance the quality of
life, strengthen the immune system and facilitate a cure. They aren’t “magic
bullets” or a substitute for sound medical treatment. I particularly want to
recommend a book by Dr. Richard Weeder, A Key to Cancer.
Find
a cancer survivor/thriver or caregiver you can open up to and who will listen
sympathetically. During our cancer journey, I learned
that many people who ask you “how are you doing” aren’t really interested in an
answer. They’re just being polite. Others (often people who’ve been through a
similar experience) truly care and are willing to take time to hear your
response. They don’t make assumptions like, “This must be so painful for you,”
when what you really want to share is, “This has been a good day.” Deep,
compassionate listening is something we all need, especially when we are facing
a life crisis like cancer either as a patient or as a caregiver.
Find
a spouse or family member or friend who you can count on to accompany you. Quaker
cancer surviver/thriver Rolene Otero told me: “Have at least three or four friends to talk to about how you are
feeling. Someone who comforts you when you are terrified, someone who tells you
to get off your buff and start exercising when you are lazy. It is helpful to have someone who has been through
it. They will listen for much longer periods than most people will.”
Explore
spiritual healing. We spent considerable time of
learning about and experimenting with spiritual healing practices and came away
with more questions than answers. The big question is: What does it mean to be
healed spiritually? Is it the same as a physical cure? Is a miraculous cure
necessary to confirm that God is good and prayer efficacious? If one isn’t
miraculously cured, does it mean that one’s faith is weak, or that God is indifferent
or impotent? Scientific studies do not confirm physical cures but show that
people who are prayed for are more likely to experience a sense of well-being.
It may be
impossible to prove or disprove the efficacy of prayer using the scientific
method since it requires a “double blind” approach and assumes that God works
predicably, just like any other force of nature. God is by definition
supernatural and God’s ways may not be measurable by science. [1]
Another
approach is to look at the consummate spiritual healer, Jesus. Why did Jesus
cure people? What about the people he didn’t cure? These are deep questions
worth pondering and there are no easy answers. Jesus was not a miracle worker
showing off his powers. He was seeking to lead people into a deeper
relationship with God, and with each other, by showing that God can perform
miracles. What matters most, however, is not the physical healing, but the
spiritual awakening. Jesus often told those who were healed: “Your faith has
made you well/whole” (Mark 5:34, Mark 10:52, Luke 17:19, Luke 18:42, Matthew
9:22).
I
like the story of the ten lepers that Jesus cured (Luke 17:11-19). Nine were
cured physically, but only one (the one who expressed gratitude) was “made
whole” and healed spiritually. We are told that he was a Samaritan, a
“foreigner,” but his faith, according to Jesus, was greater than that of Jesus’
co-religionists.
The
question remains. Does prayer “work”? Kathleen and I were prayed for continually,
but Kathleen still died. Does that mean that prayers were in vain? That was not
Kathleen’s view. She believed in the power of prayer, and practiced
intercessory prayer continually, but she realized that God’s answer to prayer
was not always what we expected. When Kathleen took part in a
Methodist-sponsored workshop on spiritual healing, she expressed her concern about
this pastor because:
“She seemed to
equate successful miraculous ‘cures’ as the most important sign of God’s
kingdom among believers. I felt concerned for her emphasis on expecting
miraculous healing in her church every week. If miraculous healing (“cure”)
doesn’t happen, does that mean that God’s kingdom isn’t present? I was
concerned that she might be led to connect her ability to heal with whether or
not she is “successful” in living out God’s calling in her life. Faith is
important, but it doesn’t require signs and wonders to enter into authentic
faith.”
What
we learned from our cancer journey is that prayers brought spiritual healing to
our souls and helped us to live wholeheartedly in God’s beloved community here
on earth in anticipation of what it’s like in heaven. We believe that what
happens to us here in this lifetime is a preparation for the life to come.
Would
we have liked a physical cure? Of course. But what we received from God was
something even more precious, as Kathleen explained when she reflected on Simon Tugwell’s book on Prayer:
“…We should listen attentively to what St Paul says about
the ‘weakness of God’ (1 Cor.
1:25)…If we keep clamoring for things we want from God, we may find ourselves
disappointed, because we have forgotten the weakness of God and what we may call the poverty of God. We had
thought of God as the disposer of all the good things we could possibly desire,
but in a very real sense, God has nothing to give at all except himself.”
This passage brought many tears to my eyes as I reflected
how like God my father Jim Ross and my husband Anthony have been to me. When I
was young, my father was the dispenser
of many good things—home, food, education, travel. But now, in my time of weakness, the only thing my father
and my husband have to give is the most precious thing of all, themselves, their presence, their calls,
their hugs, and holding my hand, and I weep for tenderness at this precious
gift, themselves. And it is more than enough for me right now!”
A
Journey, Not a Battle: We found it helpful to think of
cancer as a journey, not a battle. In a battle, we grit our teeth and fight our
enemy, using whatever means necessary, and this can be exhausting when the
“enemy” is inside of us. Another way to think of cancer is that it is an uninvited
guest who has taken residence in our body, has something to teach us and then
hopefully will go away
.
It is important
to be an “active patient” and learn as much as you can about your cancer. Ask
questions until you are satisfied with answers. When we went to our cancer
doctor, we wrote out questions in advance and made sure that all our questions
were answered to our satisfaction. Because my wife sometimes had brain fog
because of her treatment, I accompanied her to make sure our questions were
answered adequately.
Enjoy the
experience as much as you can and see it as an opportunity for spiritual and
emotional growth. We spent time with friends, watched movies, went to
plays and concerts, and even practiced “laughter yoga.” Laughter can be
curative, as Norman Cousins discovered:
Cousins was convinced that emotions played a
powerful and overlooked role in human health and disease — a belief rooted in
experience. In 1964, Cousins was diagnosed with a painful and debilitating
disorder. Conventional medicine had little to offer, so he prescribed his own
therapy: liberal doses of vitamin C and laughter. For the latter, Cousins
relied on Marx Brothers films and reruns of TV’s Candid Camera, among
other movies and shows. His doctors were skeptical, but the patient laughed his
way to a successful recovery.[2]
Even if this
approach hadn’t led to a recovery, wouldn’t it have been better to “die
laughing” than to die miserably?
We had the
luxury of being able to devote ourselves full-time to our healing journey. Not
everyone has this luxury, but whatever time you have to “enjoy the ride,” take
advantage of it.
Mary Oliver has
a wonderful poem called a “Summer Day” in which she writes:
|
I
don't know exactly what a prayer is. |
|
I
do know how to pay attention, how to fall down |
|
into
the grass, how to kneel in the grass, |
|
how
to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields |
|
which
is what I have been doing all day. |
|
Tell
me, what else should I have done? |
|
Doesn't
everything die at last, and too soon? |
|
Tell
me, what is it you plan to do |
|
With
your one wild and precious life?
|
Cultivate a
positive attitude. Read uplifting books and watch feel-good movies. Do
whatever brings you joy and peace. Romans
5:3 says, "We rejoice in
our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance, character; and character, hope".
Give yourself
permission to grieve, be angry, be depressed. These feelings are totally
legitimate. The Buddha said the First Noble Truth is that “life is suffering.” We
can try to escape from it but the more we try, the more intense the suffering
becomes. We were blessed to have friends and a cancer support group that listened
when we needed to express our frustrations, disappointments, and fears. We also
took time for silent reflection that helped us to see that when painful
feelings arise, they inevitably subside. As the old hymn says, “Trouble don’t
last always.” If you fight negative feelings, they can intensify. If you accept
them, and especially if you share these feelings with God, they go away, or are
transformed. The Psalmist began a psalm in the depths of despair: “God, why
have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22) After sharing his suffering with God, he
concludes that God does indeed listen:
For God has not despised or
abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his
face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to
him.
Being heard
deeply and compassionately is what brings peace to our souls, which is what we
all long for. Having felt heard by his Creator, the Psalmist ends by praising
God publicly, as we did repeatedly in our cancer blog. It is significant that
Jesus quoted this psalm when he was dying in agony on the cross, feeling
abandoned and rejected, yet knowing that he was being faithful to God. He
fulfilled God’s purpose for his life. He showed us the way of love and
reconciled us and God. And he knew that death was not the end of the story.
Find your
purpose. What is God, or your heart, calling you to do to you’re your cancer experience
meaningful? What unfinished work are you being led to do so you can feel your
life is complete. Rolene Otero wrote: "Sit with death every once in a while as a touch stone. I asked myself if I knew I was going
to be dead in a year, would I still be
doing whatever I was doing?"
During difficult
times, I often take to heart these words by the apostle Paul: “We know
that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are
the called according to his purpose” (Roman 8:28).
Hope. As
Christians, Kathleen and I did not believe that death has the final word. Years
before her cancer journey Kathleen had prepared herself emotionally and
spiritually for the inevitability of death through her hope in the resurrection
and the life to come. In her final Easter sermon, delivered thirteen months
before her death, she uttered these powerful words:
“I don't want to die a natural
death, like a plant. Just fade, whither, and flop over. I don't want that. I
want to face death with courage, boldness, and hope, because I know that though
I die, I will live, because of the victory given to me through my Lord Jesus
Christ.”
This was
Kathleen’s final Easter message to her flock and to the world. When put to the
test, she passed with flying colors! I feel that Kathleen taught me how to live
as Christian, face life-threatening illness as a Christian, and die as a
Christian, with faith, hope and compassion.
The Interfaith Community. For some, it is enough to have the
support of one’s religious community. But we also found comfort and support
from people of diverse faiths. One of the lessons we learned during our journey
is that we need people of other faiths on many levels. For example, our cancer
doctors were from different faith communities: Christian, Jewish and Muslim. Our
friends from different faith traditions gave us the emotional and spiritual support
we needed because they cared about us and because the core belief/practice of
every authentic religion is love and compassion. The more we connect with the
human family, God’s family, the more we feel the infinite love of our Creator
which is the source of happiness and healing. That’s why I called this book “nothing
can separate us” from God’s love and peace, not even cancer and death.
[1] See study by Chittaranjan
Andrade, Professor of
Psychopharmacology and Rajiv
Radhakrishnan, Research Office. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802370/
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