Why I Hate October

A couple of hours ago I got a call from a man in his early 40's. I could hear a television and children in the background. He called to ask if there were other men in the world like him--men whose wives had died of breast cancer.

His wife had been diagnosed about two years ago. She was in her early 30s. She died less than a year later, leaving him to raise three children, all under the age of 10. "The doctors told us she had breast cancer, and within 10 minutes they had us down talking to a surgeon," he said. "We didn't even have time to absorb what they said."

This man, who lives in a rural Southern community, said he's sick of hearing about survivors and hope. "There's so much support out there for women and families dealing with breast cancer," he said. "What about us? It's like they only want to talk about living. It's like they just ignore that anyone dies of breast cancer."

As his children played, the man told me he'd left his job so he could care for them. A former church-goer, he'd had a crisis of faith. It was hard to hear the minister talk about God's love. He was searching for answers. How could this happen to someone so young, someone so healthy, someone who ate and exercised and flossed her teeth every night?

I told him Living Beyond Breast Cancer would find him another man like him, or we'd search through the Young Survival Coalition or Men Against Breast Cancer. I told him he was not alone--even if the heavy curtain of pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month conspires to cover him and make him seem invisible.

"I hate October," he said. "I hate this month."