True. But you know what? Most of those people you are talking about don’t know if they are terminally ill, or not. It can take years to ever know - if you ever know at all. That’s a thing they usually don’t tell you about us. There are only quick and easy answers in very rare or very advanced cases. Meanwhile, you have to figure how to live with it all and handle the ‘what -if’s’ long before necessity every strikes. Because, you have to fill out those legal forms, and know what you want well ahead of time in case you can’t communicate directly.
So, the badgering can begin many years before the end of your life actually comes. But, once diagnosed, even though you see days or weeks or months when you barely think about it at all, you still can’t easily escape the need to be seen by doctors and all that entails. And so, the ‘badgering’ (and that’s an excellent way to put it, btw) can just go on and on. Next visit, a different nurse or administrator or over-burdened physician who literally does not recall your preferences on the matter. And then, it begins all over again. You could hear it thousands of times.
It’s never that people are being snarky or insensitive altogether - many times, they just don’t know what on earth to say to you at all. It’s a heavy idea. Nobody wants to hear it. I mean, even if they care nothing about you, it still forces them to think about their own mortality in some way - and most people avoid that like the freakin’ plague…or, cancer. I m not blind - I’ve seen that sudden jerk of recognition and then relief as the person remembers what they saw in some movie or tv show or announcement of some ‘fighting cancer’ fundraiser somewhere. (I suggest simply, “Best to you”, or similar.)
And I hope you get that idea really well, because, even though I can sit here and say they aren’t being mean or stupid right now doesn’t mean I’m going to handle it very well on a rough day. I might lose my temper, or I might just lay some heavy snark down and laugh. But it is never good. And nobody engaged in that kind of struggle needs to be trying to deal with cancer and your choice of words at the same time., do they? Odds are, someday, it’s going to be your or somebody you care a great deal about. Might as well learn it now so you can do better then. (And if that happens, then Keller and Adams actually did us all a solid here.)
