It’s O.K. to be a coward about cancer
SINCE JOHN MCCAIN’S BRAIN CANCER diagnosis became public, I’ve watched a lot of well-meaning people tell a brave man to be brave. “Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against,” tweeted President Obama, encouraging his former opponent to “give it hell.” Many others encouraged McCain to “fight.”
This tough-guy narrative is seductive. It suggests that we have control over our fate, that we can will cancer away. These are also the lies we tell ourselves—in the
