Play Another Card

This week, at a business event, a woman—who was a complete stranger to me--said, “I’m a two-time breast cancer survivor.”

All day I thought about what she said, so out of the blue, and I wondered at her need to introduce herself that way. I don’t know if she’s married, a mom, has cats, belongs to the Libertarian party, hates the sound of chalk on a blackboard, or loves raspberries, but I know about her breasts and her health.

What I also know is that the experience of cancer has so colored her life that it has become her primary identity. That seems as great a tragedy as the surgeries and treatments she has been through. I know this happens not just with cancer but with other illnesses, divorces, losses even—and sometimes with our recovery too.

How are we defining ourselves and how are we allowing others or things that happen to us to define us.

Many years ago Mary Fetting, a wonderful therapist in Baltimore, helped me to make some big changes in my life. She saw how my thoughts were keeping me stuck, and she would say to me, “Play another card.”

She explained that we are each dealt a hand of cards—we get maybe seven to 10 cards each—both good stuff and bad stuff. “But, she would say, “Some people just play the same card over and over.”  “Look at your hand,” she would say, “and play another card.” 

I wanted to say that to the woman—whose name I never learned --but who believes that the most important thing about her is cancer, “Please, for the sake of your life, play another card.”