Soapbox No. 3: The Language of Cancer

Let's start with the cliches: "Died after a long and courageous battle with cancer." Everyone who dies of cancer is automatically brave. Read the obituaries, you'll see what I mean.

Notice all the military metaphors and male imagery? Why is that?

It's gotten so that I'm afraid to be a coward. It might show up in my obituary: "Jeanne Sather died Wednesday after a brief, cowardly skirmish with cancer."

I've been working on this one for almost as long as I have had cancer, which is to say eight years of trying to come up with an alternative to the cliche "battle with cancer," and I haven't found a great one yet. Help, anyone?

In the meantime, I've written my own obituary (which says I DIED, not "passed away," "left us," or "passed over to the other side") and have planned my own funeral.

To read more on this topic, see this article in the Seattle P-I, which includes an interview with me (and a flattering photo).

Read: To be dead sure you get the last word, write your own obit

And for more thoughts on death, obituaries, and the language of cancer, from one of my favorite blogs, As the Tumor Turns:
We're All Buddies on This Bus

@ Jeanne Sather 2006