Last week, I spoke on the phone with a friend, also living with metastatic cancer, and sought her counsel on just how to be and how to hold the tremendous burden of this diagnosis without being overcome by it. She told me that a fundamental belief of hers was that “there are worse things than having cancer.” In the moment, I tried to receive this wisdom, but it was very very difficult. I paused. I stuttered. I responded with some kind of platitude. I understood the direction of this belief, but having been home from the hospital only for a few days, I couldn’t summon the magnanimity needed to move beyond my own hurt and trauma to authentically accept what she said.

But this week– this week it is so devastatingly clear that there are worse things than having cancer. That worse thing is to have a knee grinding into your neck for almost nine minutes, to have your humanity completely disregarded, to cry out for your dead mother as you suffer, to be executed with utter nonchalance, to die from white supremacy. George Floyd was his name; he was a son, a brother, a father, a friend, a parishioner, a community member. He had goals and ambitions, and by all accounts, a big loving heart.

There are worse things than having cancer and cancer doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The first time I was diagnosed, in 2015, I had just about started my chemo treatment when the Paris Bataclan nightclub shooting happened. I remember thinking that it felt like my personal world had stopped with the diagnosis, but the world hadn’t stopped. There was still violence, terror, and intractable conflict. And I wrestled with, what can I do more of, to counter pain, fear, and separation in this world? But at the same time, I felt like I had no energy to give to the outside world. I just wanted to cocoon myself, be safe, and sleep and sleep and sleep.

These days, I have been thinking a lot about what it means to be safe—what does it mean to be psychologically safe, to be physically safe, to be safe in America? Since being told by my oncologist on April 24 about my metastases, a stage IV diagnosis, I have felt stalked by death. Even if hopefully far away, its contours have been made visible to me. Most days, in metaphorical and literal sunlight, it is barely perceptible. But there are days it comes into sharper focus and then fear, much as I try to resist, gets the best of me.  

In those moments of fear, though, I still have recourse to believing in safety, that others will work to keep me safe. Last week, on my most recent trip to Dana Farber, I began to panic in the car. My heart raced, my body heaved uncontrollably, and I started retching. By the time I got to the waiting area for my blood draw, I had calmed down considerably, but was still shaking and agitated. I closed my eyes, tried to breathe deeply and slowly, and repeated a mantra to myself: “there are people here to keep you safe. They will take care of you. There are people here to keep you safe. They will take care of you. There are people here to keep you safe. They will take care of you.” The mantra for the most part worked and the panic subsided.

What buttressed the confidence that I would find safety? Because although safety is a human right, of course we know that to have safety (physically or psychologically) is simply not a given for all. And it is definitely not a given for Black America. My trust that I can access safety is a compounding of privileges: secure shelter and a home owned by my parents, steady income even throughout the pandemic, a cushion of savings, robust health insurance, access to world-class hospitals, a wide social network, a supportive husband, a skin color that marks me as different but not typically as a threat. I joke sometimes that if I’m going to have cancer, then I am under the best structural conditions to have it. There are worse things than having cancer because, for me and in this body, even in the moments of greatest fear or anguish, I can reach out towards safety. I can trust that my life matters. I do not have to defend it or insist on it.

My friend, who grew up abroad witness to state violence and conditions of poverty and inequality, knows the truth behind “there are worse things than having cancer” much better than I. The daily inequities, surveillance, constant affronts to human worth and dignity that are perpetuated by structural violence and institutional racism create a gnawing suffering just as destructive as cancer. As I think about the days I feel stalked by death, this feeling of bitter vulnerability that shrouds me is a chronic condition as well for those who are not guaranteed safety– not in recognition by others, not in treatment by the state, not in resources, not in movement, (and certainly not in healthcare). George Floyd had no chance to reach out to safety as his body was literally crushed, nor did Breonna Taylor as she slept in her own home. Safety should be fundamental for all but that will never be the case as long as militarized law enforcement is funded and continues to exist, maintaining what Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter explains is “an economy of punishment over an economy of care.”

When I think about how desperately I want to feel safe, how visceral the feeling is, I know that an “economy of care” is the system that we need to fight for, for Black lives, for our collective humanity. For me, to allow that there are worse things than cancer isn’t intended to be callous (for myself or others), but a call to move beyond my own despair. I can’t promise that I will always know how to do this, but I can try.

There are numerous resources online (much more comprehensive than anything I can put together, such as here and here) regarding how to educate ourselves to be antiracist, take continued action, and stand in solidarity with the movement for Black lives. Being severely immunosuppressed has kept me away from protests and demonstrations, but in the immediate term I am committing monetary resources to supporting victims of police brutality, organizations supporting divestment from police departments, and non-profits that advocate for racial health equity. I am shifting my consumption practices to patronize more Black-owned businesses (like Frugal Bookstore in Roxbury, MA) and pledge to move money into a Black-owned bank. These small steps alone obviously don’t change a system, but they bring some individual accountability into concrete action.