I’ve never had cancer. So I can’t speak to what that’s like.
But I had a front row seat to the fight of someone I loved. Twice, actually. Both times it was my mom. The second time, cancer won.
It’s strange, being the one who loves the person who's sick. You're not the patient. You're not the doctor. You’re the one who absorbs the hits and still has to figure out what’s for dinner.
Grief starts early. Like, before the doctor even says the word.
You know how people talk about the “stages of grief”? Denial, anger, bargaining, etc.? Try doing all five of those in a Walgreens parking lot before the biopsy results even come back.
The moment you suspect cancer, grief taps you on the shoulder and whispers, “Hey, mind if I crash here for a few months? Maybe forever?”
You must keep living your life, doing laundry, sending emails, but you’re already mourning a version of reality that doesn’t exist anymore.
“When they are better” is a magical finish line.
You start postponing life. Little things, big things, all the things.
Trips, birthday parties, dinner plans, all moved to this vague future where everything will be fine again.
When they are better. The thing everyone silently agrees to believe in order to function.
The doctors give you homework.
In the name of empowering the patient, the entire system quietly offloads responsibility to the patient, but really the patient advocate - the one not getting pummeled by chemo.
Suddenly, you’re on the phone with insurance, arguing about codes and googling clinical trials. You basically go to medical school by accident and overnight.
It’s weird being the healthy one.
They have cancer. You don’t. So what are you allowed to feel?
Because, yeah, you're tired. You’re crying in the laundry room again. You’re angry. You're afraid. You’re Googling side effects and telling your friends that you're “fine.”
But you also feel guilty for feeling anything because you’re not the one in treatment. You’re just the one making sure everyone has snacks and the pharmacy doesn’t screw up.
You tell yourself, This isn’t about me.
Which is true.
But also, wow, it kind of is.
Survivorship is bizarre
The doctors say it’s over, but the one you love is still waiting—for their hair to grow back, for their scars to stop aching, for their skin to feel like their own again, for their energy to finally return. And you’re left wondering what to do...dwell on it? let it go? nudge them toward “moving on”?
If you reach this milestone your capacity for gratitude will blow you away and your BS tolerance will dip to an all time low.
Hospice changes the entire genre.
If hospice shows up it’s like the movie changes from medical drama to existential horror.
All the “fighting” stops. Logically you shift from “hope” to “comfort.” From “treatment” to “managing symptoms.” From “Let’s beat this” to “Do they want to die at home or…?”. Emotionally, can you shift anything?
You clean their mouth with a little sponge. You get weirdly good at tracking morphine doses. You cry while folding their pajamas.
Letting go of the meds that were supposed to help? That feels like betrayal.
Waiting for their last breath? That’s a kind of madness.
You will feel shame.
There are things you’re not supposed to admit. Like how changing an adult diaper might be hard to stomach. Or how mouth care can feel more intimate than you’re ready for, not in a good way.
You won’t show up to work meetings. You’ll ghost the PTA. You’ll probably forget your best friend’s birthday. Entire chunks of your life will slide off the table while you’re trying to keep someone else alive and long after.
And later, you’ll wonder if everyone noticed how much you disappeared.
They probably did. They also probably understood. But, you’ll still carry it.
That’s part of it too.
The end comes, and it’s quiet and awful.
When it’s over, you expect to fall apart. Maybe you do. But maybe you also feel relief. Maybe that makes you feel like a monster. But it shouldn’t.
Relief doesn’t mean you’re glad they’re gone. It means the suffering stopped.
It means you can finally breathe. Which is confusing, because you also feel like you're drowning.
Here’s how I coped.
I didn’t meditate. I couldn’t. For the first time in my life, I did crossword puzzles. I read novels on my Kindle Paperwhite at 2am. I walked around the block.
I talked to every single person I knew who had ever mentioned cancer. I cried a lot. When I thought I was out of tears, more came.
I did the best I could.
Final truth:
Loving someone with cancer will wreck you.
You will be brave and kind and patient and deeply, deeply human.
It will ask more of you than you thought you had.
You’ll do it anyway and more. Because you love them.
And that’s what love looks like when the stakes are high and the air is heavy.
It’s ugly, and holy, and exhausting, and brutal.
And it’s not something anyone can prepare you for.
But if you’re in it now?
You’re not alone.