Below is one of the TV spots for the "More Birthdays" campaign of the American Cancer Society. It's self-explanatory.
Very few things truly offend me. This commercial, and the one that immediately preceded it featuring another celebrity, came the closest anything has in a long time. I saw it as I stood in the rec room of my childhood home — getting ready to take my leave after a short weekend visit — while chatting with my terminal mother as she rested on the couch.
Maybe it was me, but the silence between us as we watched felt awkward. We resumed our conversation as if uninterrupted when the commercials were done.
Aggressive cancer that retreats and then comes back, retreats and then comes back, retreats in then comes back; that tests your faith; it strains your sense of hope. When your loved one has reached the point beyond treatment, where every single day is a gift, when a phone call you've dreaded your entire life — but now know to be inevitable — could come at any time, a message like "More Birthdays" rings very hollow, no matter how much you want it to resonate.
I do hope for more birthdays for those patients out there at war with cancer, I truly do. My mother turned 61 in November. If we even get to celebrate 62, I have no idea how empty that celebration may feel.
