Tales of Three Cancer Patients

 The first story that touched me came from the movie "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". When a person knows that he is terminally ill and encounters accusations and incomprehension, how will he react? The moment Sheriff Willoughby covered his head with a towel and pulled the trigger on himself, I really wanted to call him a coward! The Bible says not to kill. If a person chooses to give up just because of terminal illness and accident, isn’t he afraid of going to hell if he does such a thing? But as the plot of the movie progressed, one letter after another opened up the heart of the heroine and at the same time broke my original prejudice. In order not to drag down his family, to eliminate hatred, even if he is not understood or even misunderstood, he has to arrange everything and then make that choice. Is this brave or cowardly? Should such a person go to heaven or hell after death? I'm starting to get a little confused. . .

While I was still looking for answers, I happened to read He Caitou's 《老白歧路亡命14年纪念》, so I spent the entire Spring Festival watching all 6 seasons and 62 episodes of "Breaking Bad". After reading it, what touched me the most was the question that  Walter White asked twice: Why me? This is also the question that many cancer patients and all people in various misfortunes have questioned the sky/Buddha/God countless times in the dead of night but have not received a response.

The wise  Walter White never struggled with this unanswered question every time. The first time he thought about this question was when he just found out that he had lung cancer. He bypassed this question and used actions to answer another question that was not asked aloud: I am dead, what should I do with my wife and children? ---Do everything possible to let them leave some money [734,000 US dollars], so that they can live a better life, at least to ensure that the quality of life will not be reduced!

And an ordinary high school chemistry teacher, a person who is desperate but still wants to be self-reliant and does not eat what he gets, in this age when everything has to be paid for, what else can he turn into money besides his own chemistry knowledge? What about orphans and widows? So he walked into the world of swords and swords and intrigues without hesitation, and became the big drug lord Heisenberg.

Fortunately, he has a solid foundation and is smart enough. While avoiding many open and dark arrows, he also committed many crimes and killed several people in order to protect himself. When he saved enough money, settled his wife and children, and prepared to go to hell alone with his sins, God seemed to have not played enough with him: his cancer was cured after treatment! This made him ask the unsolvable question for the second time: Why me? Yes, the disease has a chance to be cured, but how can the sins committed be gone with the wind, how can the person who was killed come back to life? What should he do? What will he do?

The story behind is very exciting, but it has little to do with cancer. Interested friends can search for it by themselves, here we will skip directly to the finale. Looking back at the finale, was the original choice right or wrong? For  Walter White this ending is not perfect, but it is also a happy ending. But if we start from the perspective of the old Bai family members such as Xiaofan, Skyler, and Hank, do we really hope that he will make such a choice?

If love is accompanied by hurt, if love needs to cost our own or someone else's life, should we continue to love? Will we still accept this kind of love, can we bear this heavy and sinful love? I have no idea. I thought that "Breaking Bad" would give me answers that I didn't find in "Three Billboards", but now there are more questions and I am even more confused. I was thinking if I had cancer, would I choose to be Sheriff Willoughby or the big drug lord White? Are there other options?

So I embarked on a new journey and continued to look for more possibilities. I also began to recall what I had seen and gained in the past 30 years of my life. In my memory, I heard the sentence that the old woman asked the policeman in "I'm Not the God of Medicine": I don't want to die, I just want to live, okay? I also saw the scene in "Sweeping Drugs" where Sean Lau was forced to choose between two brothers, and also saw the scene in "The Three-Body Problem" where Dr. Luo Ji used all the lives on two planets to fight against the three-body man in the desert. And after Cheng Xin dropped the red button, she was bewildered like a walking dead, and finally saw a figure of a relative in her heart: my aunt.

My aunt's family are devout Christians. At that time, my cousin and two cousins were married and had children, and they were working away from home, while my aunt and my uncle were helping to take care of the children in our hometown. Although they were not rich, they were also very ordinary and happy. Until one day, my aunt, who was always in good health and could even farm the fields, often felt abdominal pain. After going to the hospital for an examination, she found out that it was uterine cancer. The doctor said that there were only a few months left or that she could choose chemotherapy to prolong her life. For a rural family, this is undoubtedly a bolt from the blue.

On the surface, the doctor gave two options, but for most of us, is there really a choice? My aunt knew that the cost of chemotherapy was not something her family could afford, and it would make the poor family even worse. No matter how her family persuaded her, she was unwilling to go. Her pious faith made her firmly believe that this was just a test from God, and she often comforted everyone not to be sad.

How could it not be sad to see my relatives being tortured by the disease and getting thinner day by day, while I am powerless? So everyone kept praying to God, and each went to find folk remedies or earth remedies, hoping to find a way to alleviate the disease. Everyone knows it's unscientific, but what else is there to do?

Later, some brothers and sisters in the church recommended a vegetarian + fruit set meal. Everyone thought it was worth a try, so my aunt stopped eating meat, and my brothers and sisters would ask friends to buy all kinds of food from all over the country from time to time. The fruit sent back to her. I don't know if this package is really effective, or God heard everyone's prayers, or my aunt's own tenacious will frightened the disease, and my aunt's condition has really stabilized.

I remember one year when I went home during the Spring Festival and took my child to visit the New Year. It should be the second year after my aunt was diagnosed. My uncle is carefully squeezing fruit juice for my aunt, and next to it is a refrigerator full of various fresh fruits, while my aunt is sitting on the edge of the patio, basking in the sun leisurely. Although she is still much thinner than before she got sick, her mental state is obviously much better than the first year. We chatted about the past, how I used to pester her when I was a child, and she only wanted her to wash me every time I took a shower, and how I wanted to believe in Christianity with her, but my mother chased her from under the cafeteria to the edge of the river. . . Now in a blink of an eye, my child is already as old as I was back then. When asked about her condition, she told me: Thank the Lord, she is much better now. Your brother and sister bought so many fruits that they couldn’t finish them all, and they wouldn’t listen to what they said they didn’t need. Every time they went so far away during the holidays, they still ran back. It was very hard work. Of course, the hardest thing is your uncle, who keeps doing this and that for me every day. I looked back at my uncle, who was concentrating on squeezing the fruit.

I thought that my aunt's condition would stabilize like this, but within a few months, I heard the news that she was seriously ill. When I rushed back, my cousins, and their children, had been with her for a long time at home. The whole family sat beside her, and everyone was very sad. Only my aunt was very open: Thank the Lord, doctor Originally, I only had a few months, but now I have far exceeded his estimate, and it is time to return to the embrace of the Lord!

In the years since my aunt died, I never realized how brave she was. It wasn't until I finished typing these words that I saw the sheriff dodging and  Walter White running away. Only she was calmly waiting for the trial with faith and love.