On the day my friends in DC are memorializing our dear sister, Risikat Okedeyi, who lost her life to cancer at the end of 2023, my friends in Memphis and I are hosting a fundraiser for our sister, Shahidah Jones, who has been fighting cancer for the last few years. Kat succumbed to her diagnosis rather quickly. Shay’s journey has been debilitating and life-changing. Cancer, for most people, is not an easy diagnosis or fight. Cancer for Black women is too often fatal.
My mother saw several doctors during her cancer journey. Many of them gave up on her. They considered her insistence in finding a cure and living to be stubborn, and often, she was met with “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sawyer, there’s nothing more we can do.” When you’re 70 years old with a vibrant career, a thriving family, and a comfortable life, but you’ve survived the projects of Chicago, domestic abuse, and childhood poverty, you don’t accept “there’s nothing more we can do.” Gladys wasn’t going for it. I often think that with the comfortable life my parents gifted me, I would have sat in that office and said, “Okay, thank you,” and prepared to die. In the four extra years that she demanded the world give her, my mother taught me not to accept anyone else’s timeline for my life.
One doctor recommended my mother seek options at MD Anderson Cancer Hospital in Houston, TX. For the first time in decades, my parents, brother, and I loaded in their SUV and took a road trip. We sang old songs. Laughed at family stories. Michael and I argued. Everyone yelled at me about my horrible driving. It was a wonderful time that took us back to summers in the 80s, heading back and forth between Fayette County (Memphis) and South Holland (Chicago). We were also nervous and prepared to leave my parents in Houston for any treatment plan that the doctors prescribed.
Our return drive held none of that joyous energy. MD Anderson told my mother that there were no clinical trials for a woman her age with multiple cancers (breast, endometrial, and lung) and that her only option was maintenance of care treatments at home. My parents had a short tiff in the hotel because upon hearing the doctor's opinion, my father said, “If she weren’t a Black woman, they’d bend over backward to figure it out.” My mother didn’t want to accept defeat. We went home 24 hours after arriving, unsure of her future or our family’s. She lived for almost two more years, and her final doctor, Dr. Jankov, attributed that to her grit and determination more than modern medicine. My father’s point remains true, though: Black women shouldn’t have to have grit and determination to live.
I think about my death often. I am sure it will be in a car because I am a horrible, non-attentive driver. When I see women in my age group dying or suffering from health issues that should be easily solved, I wonder if that will be me. Who will advocate for my health? Will I have to evoke the spirit of my mother, the persistence of Kat and Shay, and demand that I live? Or will extensive care be offered to me in the same way it is to those with a different heritage or income? These are questions no one should have to ask, and yet Black women are still 2x more likely to die from endometrial cancer and 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. I have no conclusion except it’s not okay. We have to fight to breathe in this country. We have to fight even harder when we want to live.