Dear Pinktober,
F*ck you.
I knew and loved people who were stolen from me. I witnessed cancer snuff out brilliance just for torture. My suffering was enormous. We've all been touched by you. We lost.
So, hell yeah, f*ck cancer.
Also, f*ck pink!
Same goes for every color serving as a banner for the illness du jour. F*ck red and purple and teal and balloons and Bunco and parties and cocktails. F*ck saving the ta-tas and pink hand mixers and making me feel guilty for only giving 1.00 "to the cause" when I go to the store to buy some lip balm.
Pinktober is wasteful, and it's a distraction. Much of the crap I will be socially guilted into purchasing will never "profit" people directly affected by cancer. I will have more unwanted pink stuff, and people I love will still have cancer.
Meanwhile, I'll sit in my doctor's office next to fragile patients wearing masks to protect their failing immunity. I'll hear them hacking up a lung while trying to be normal in a wig, or trying to be brave in a scarf, or trying not to die bald. While they wait, their doctors will be speaking on local TV circuits to promote "awareness" for cancer.
What is awareness? Yeah, me neither.
Are you aware that people are in pain, hauling oxygen tanks behind them, and writhing in discomfort, piling up in rooms that loop game shows for hours? Family Feud was on for two hours! I sat there and tried not to visibly stop my ears.
Are you aware that people get wheeled in by their spouses, sons, and daughters, who take off from work to accompany them to appointments; that patients and families are losing time and money and energy -- and mostly time -- while pink parades ferry by?
October is the month of my daughter's birthday, my wedding anniversary, my favorite holiday, Halloween. October is for candy and costumes and orange and black. It's for witch's hats and tacky crafts and devilish little feet crunching through leaves. October exists for that one night of the year when we knock on neighbors' doors. People come out of their homes and gather on porches and act like neighbors. (Plus, candy.)
October is for the saturated memes filtering through our social media feeds, dressed up in clean white fonts against rugged backgrounds. They tout crisp air, apple cider, boots, cuddles, and blankets. For Christ's sake, shouldn't we be nostalgic about this utopia, where, technically, everything is dying off, but it feels good?
October looks dreadful in pink. It's not a season for donations, ridiculously, for such things as purchasing dates with women via live auction or for making me buy a pink t-shirt at work. If I choose not to do so, we all know what happens. I am the curmudgeonly person seeming selfish and not empathetic. I am a target of shared corporate shame and rebellion, with all altruistic eye-darts upon me, judging, confounded.
Cancer is a serious f*cking illness. It kills people. It robs them of life and joy and money and faith, and, I could go on, but I'm not. Time is running out on people I love.
I dare you to read me that passage (poem?) about "what cancer cannot kill." Cancer can and cancer will. Cancer is a taker. Before it kills all the cells in a body, it imparts anxiety and depression to the mind, and crushes the spirit of its victims, the children, spouses, mothers, fathers, and siblings it leaves in its wake. Cancer kicks up the plain old dust, dark as death.
It is dust without powder pink sparkles and hot pink glitter. It is the dust of black lungs and red blood. It is the gash marked into family trees, stamped in time, carved out of cerebral cortex, the texture of bark, where the brain is protected. It cuts off air to the the limbs and dries out the roots.
After you pay the band, slap pink wrappers on water bottles, and parcel out the food budget, what is left to place in the hands of the sick and the dying? What has changed for the person with cancer?
Go ahead with your cutesy "fun-raisers." Take your stupid no-makeup selfies with your pink selfie sticks. Maybe you'll feel better in your comfortable filter of pink champagne, photo ops with dollar props, and bubbles. If you can stand up to dance at the party, be my guest. Wave your pink-gloved hand my way, so I can return to you the hand signal of my bird people.
Stop Pinktober!
Save your pink frosting for more birthdays, where we can be joyous to celebrate with strong lungs giving easy breath to wishes blown across candles on cakes.
I want cake. I always want cake, and I deserve cake because we all deserve cake.
If you have anything to give, money or otherwise, place it in the hands of individuals and families affected by cancer. Arrange a group of casserole bakers, or send a nice card in the mail with money for groceries. Offer to purchase the groceries, and then go deliver them. Sit down with human beings who need you to just be present with them right now. For people with cancer, right now is everything.
If you like pink, put it on and wear it, but don't wear it for boobs. Just wear it for pink.
As for me, I want to share cider while I fetch you a blanket, or read you a story. I want to tell you an obnoxious joke to catch your smile and hear your laugh again. I want to trap it, your laugh, your voice, so that I may always know you as you are. You are not defined by cancer. October is the color of my state of mind, and my love for you is seasonless.