A few years ago, my mother was
diagnosed with
breast cancer. Some doctor decided that it would be really cool and productive to lop off her
breast. It seemed like a good idea at the time and in order to make it sound even more
reasonable, they called the procedure a
mastectomy
. After a lifetime dosage of radiation and non-stop
chemotherapy, she is coasting along in a "some months I have hair, some I don't" kind of
chemical idle. The
cancer isn't advancing, it isn't retreating; it's in for the long haul.
Ok, this situation pretty much sucks and everyone knows it. Consequently, it is an
unsolicited-
sympathy magnet. The most common
sympathy token received is:
I'm so sorry. You and your mother will be in our prayers.
My family and my
mother's
social circle is mostly
Southern Baptist. I have heard this
token more than I care to count. From the aforementioned
family and
friends, this is pretty expected. This sort of
verbal affirmation of their
support was, I'm sure, welcome at some point in the past. The memory of those days is long lost in a hazy cloud of
irritation. Infinite repetitions, and contributions by people who don't know me or my mother at all (but a
reasonable percent of whom I am
sure mean well and are
sincere) have made this little
token abrasive.
Then came the straw that
sodomized the
camel's
backside. An
acquaintance of mine, who professes to be a Buddhist, felt like offering his
token. Now let it be said that I have an impression of this person as a
buddhist wannabe who doesn't really get the whole point of
Buddhism. He expresses funky ideas like
meat can't touch my food,
other odd stances regarding
Buddhism and being a vegetarian and a slew of other
wacky things. So one day, in a gesture of
universal harmonic solidarity, this person walks up to me and after inquiring about my mom's health says,
I'll pray to Buddha for her health.
You've got be fucking kidding me. I thought I was going to lose it. I thought that unless I did some major
anger management or was willing to go
underground, I was going to
jail. Last time I checked,
Buddha was not just some
lameass winamp skin for Jesus. It seems perfectly acceptable for
christians to petition
Jesus to cure Aunt Bessie's
goiter or to give Cousin Chichi the strength to accept her
harelip. That's his
shtick. Oh yeah, and there's that
salvation thing. This pseudo buddhist could've expressed his concern for my mother's well-being, meditated on the path of her
enlightenment or offered to take out her trash and all would have been
copacetic. As it is, we were all just lucky no one got hurt.