In the Margins

The ubiquitous reality of cancer had persuaded me the world did not need another cancer poem. It had all been said. Could there be a subject more distressing and dreary? But having lived the roles of caregiver, patient, and survivor, I remained puzzled as to how to understand the ten years of my life that had been overtaken by this empress of all maladies, to play on a phrase from Siddhartha Mukherjee.

In June 2009, my beloved older brother died from multiple myeloma. Two weeks before his exit, his life partner began a ten-year wrestling match with breast cancer. By fall 2010, we had also buried our father and baby sister. My dear fifteen-year-old standard poodle followed shortly thereafter. Then I got the phone call, in spring 2011. One year later, my husband launched into treatment for stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My best friend’s five-year engagement with ovarian cancer came to an end, taking our forty-five-year relationship with it. What...