Return to Sender

Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost something important.

Its preciousness has nothing to do with monetary value and everything to do with spiritual well-being. Like the five senses, it is an innate ability.

Outside of the safety of the familial cocoon, it has been swallowed up in darkness. Like Peter Pan’s shadow it has become disconnected from my essence.

I know that it is close at hand, tauntingly within reach. But I am blind to its presence.

If you should find it in your personal travels, please mark it RETURN TO SENDER. I’m certain the postal service will return it to me, along with this year’s letters to Santa.

What have I lost?

I’m shocked you even have to ask that question. When have you last seen a grin on my face?

When is the last time you heard me laugh on the phone?

Somewhere, hiding from me…is the ability to have fun.

Seeing Red in a Pink World

We’ve barely moved into October and I am already feeling the urge to puke pink. No, I’m not about to purge Pepto-Bismol. My revulsion is created by something that has become equally as distasteful…Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My beef isn’t with breast cancer. It is a disease that is truly horrendous and needs to be eradicated.

No, my beef is with the omnipresent marketing of the disease.

Thanks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the color pink is plastered everywhere and on everything. What started with a simple pink ribbon has blossomed into endemic proportions. We now have pink laptops (Sony), pink toasters (Dualit), pink yogurt lids (Yoplait), and pink Visa cards; we have pink sneakers (New Balance), pink water pitchers (Vitapur), pink mixers (Kitchen Aid), and pink garden tools (Apollo). The list of pink products continues on ad nauseum.

The last straw for me came today with NFL players wearing pink gloves and cleats. It just went too far.

Cancer touches everyone at some point in their lives.

Mine has been touched over and over again:

-My father died from Bladder cancer
-My paternal grandfather had prostate cancer
-My mother had melanoma
-My maternal grandmother had lymphoma
-My maternal aunt had bone cancer
-My brother has had both prostate cancer and skin cancer
-My MALE cousin has had breast cancer

With this history, it is only a matter of time before cancer touches me.

What angers me is that this excellent marketing campaign has relegated other cancers to the sidelines. It has marginalized other cancer patients who might be coming in for physical treatment or emotional health and are bombarded with the hardly subliminal message during October at hospitals, doctor’s offices, and social service agencies around the country that breast cancer matters MORE. It has made competition for the remaining dollars (for research, for care) fierce.

ALL cancers are serious conditions, but even they are not the deadliest.

At last tabulation, heart disease remains the largest killer in America (even among women). With that in mind…does anyone know when National Heart Month is in America?

I didn’t think so.