Talk about death

I need to be sensitive, two of our friends attend a funeral today. One of Jan's relatives was run down and killed by a car last Friday, so we can "mourn with those who mourn" as commanded by Paul in Romans chapter 12 verse 15. I don't know how long the newspaper will keep this event as news, at present it is here http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/news/story.aspx?brand=EADOnline&category=news&tBrand=eadonline&tCategory=News&itemid=IPED09%20Mar%202008%2011%3A51%3A46%3A847

An interesting blog entry on the passage in Romans is at http://tiffsniff.blogspot.com/2007/07/mourn-with-those-who-mourn.html

Cancer does not take us away from the day to day joys and tragedies of life, we share the care and grief of our friends.

In writing a sympathy card to this lady's son I scanned the first ten entries in the obituary column of our paper. All ten described the event as "so and so passed away". It seems we cannot talk about death! I found no help in the sentimental clap trap of the obituary column, so instead wrote to remind the son of the great impact his Mum had on us during her life, and reminding him of Jesus' promise of eternal life in John chapter 3 verse 16.

It reminds me of the epithet of a friend of mine, Pastor John Barr. He would have enjoyed the epithet on his funeral programme – ‘gone to another meeting’. He excited my Christian life. Details of John can be found here http://www.river-church.org.uk/NetSite/?Page=History

In looking at Jan's cancer we have had to face death. Earlier I had said the five year statistics were good, but the 10 and 20 year far more alarming. It seems to me there are three likely reasons:

1. if you have had one cancer it seems likely that your body is more susceptible than general. Frequently women with cancer in one breast have a second in the other breast at a later stage unless hormone treatment is used.
2. radiotherapy is good at stopping local recurrence, but after 5 or so years it seems to increase risk of distant metastases, or even start second cancers in lung or heart. These new cancers are probably caused by damage from the radio treatment itself. Radio is so damaging it cannot be repeated to the same breast. Two colleagues' wives have died from matastases, one in the liver, the other in the brain.
   
3. the standard drug Tamoxifen seems to lose effect after 5 or so years, the cancer gets adapted to it and even thrives on it.
   

I read there are about 1 million women in USA taking Tamoxifen. There must be a similar proportion in the UK. At first I think it means we need a mission to such people who should be prepared to meet God. But on reflection we are all in this situation, death is part of God's plan, even Lazarus who was raised from the dead by Jesus eventually died.

As John Piper says "you will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death". Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 2 says "it is better to go to the house of mourning rather than feasting. for death is the end of every man, the living should take this to heart."

When I worked with young people I used to point them to http://www.deathclock.com/ to remind them that they should plan for certain death. Maybe it is not a site for the squeamish! But deathclock is a serious site bringing home the importance of our life, the certainty of death, and how to increase our healthy life. For example it has many good links to general health at http://healthclock.healthology.com/main/condition_centers.aspx and specifically for breast cancer here http://healthclock.healthology.com/breast-cancer/breast-cancer-treatment/focusareasub.htm