Apologies in advance for this blog update...I feel a rant coming on!
I'm sorry if anyone uses this phrase but I am so frustrated at hearing "sadly lost their battle to cancer", I understand that it's said from a very good place and people often don't know how to say things in times of death but it just makes me angry, in my opinion, the phrase insinuates that the person who has died, simply gave up!
I have met and lost many people to cancer as well to other illnesses, but they never gave up, they wanted to live, they didn't say "oh hands up, you win!"
I see this phrase used so much in the press and social media, the more it's said, the more insensitive I think it sounds to the person who has died family/friends, it's like saying "Oh blah, blah down the street won cancer, but blah blah didn't win." It's as if that person didn't try as hard...
If anything "the battle" continues when that person has died, the family/friends carrying on, because they have to, they carry on and complete things that the person who has died might not have started/finished such as travelling, setting up a new charity, fundraising etc
I'm not perfect, I know I will say things that other people find infuriating but it's just simply got to me today, maybe because my husband is incurable and I know one day I will have these condolence messages that fill up my Facebook.
I read Stuart Scott's (ESPN presenter, who died recently) quote about cancer today and it summed up my feelings perfectly...
"When you die, that does not mean that you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live and the manner in which you live"
