What Remains
A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love
by Carole Radziwill C 2005
Scribner Publishers
page 135
(This is one of the bravest honesties of a book. It's about what it really is to deal with a loved one's cancer treatment and their death, what it is to be "the healthy one." It defies the PR of the advertisers pushing the pink ribbon brigades to put on a happy face. Carole's husband Anthony Radziwill died of a high grade sarcoma that metathesized in a predictable fashion despite fight and optimism.)
"One of the myths about cancer is that it triggers bravery and heroism and larger-than-life qualities amplified against the bleak backdrop. But bravery can be confused with denial. A patient can deny what is happeneing and then go on about his business - live life to the fullest - but that is not the same as being brave. A patient's wife can sit hours at a bedside, memorize lists of medicines, and spend countless nights on a hospital cot, but that is an entirely different thing from being staunch or devoted. it is what the bewildered do, stunned in the head-lights, unable to come up with anything else."
