Depressed

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lotof time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact,depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is,really.) But my mom believed I required treatment, so she took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was veritably swimmingin a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly SupportGroup.This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A sideeffect of dying.The Support Group, of course, was depressing as hell. It met every Wednesday in the basement of a stone-walled Episcopal churchshaped like a cross. We all sat in a circle right in the middle of the cross, where the two boards would have met, where the heart of Jesuswould have been.I noticed this because Patrick, the Support Group Leader and only person over eighteen in the room, talked about the heart of Jesusevery freaking meeting, all about how we, as young cancer survivors, were sitting right in Christ’s very sacred heart and whatever.So here’s how it went in God’s heart: The six or seven or ten of us walked/wheeled in, grazed at a decrepit selection of cookies andlemonade, sat down in the Circle of Trust, and listened to Patrick recount for the thousandth time his depressingly miserable life story—howhe had cancer in his balls and they thought he was going to die but he didn’t die and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basementin the 137th nicest city in America, divorced, addicted to video games, mostly friendless, eking out a meager living by exploiting hiscancertastic past, slowly working his way toward a master’s degree that will not improve his career prospects, waiting, as we all do, for thesword of Damocles to give him the relief that he escaped lo those many years ago when cancer took both of his nuts but spared what only themost generous soul would call his life.AND YOU TOO MIGHT BE SO LUCKY!Then we introduced ourselves: Name. Age. Diagnosis. And how we’re doing today. I’m Hazel, I’d say when they’d get to me. Sixteen.Thyroid originally but with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in my lungs. And I’m doing okay.Once we got around the circle, Patrick always asked if anyone wanted to share. And then began the circle jerk of support: everyonetalking about fighting and battling and winning and shrinking and scanning. To be fair to Patrick, he let us talk about dying, too. But most ofthem weren’t dying. Most would live into

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