Episode 8: Book Report: “Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)”
The sisters enter the world of “sick lit” and cancer in the media, then discuss the work of Duke professor and colon cancer survivor Kate Bowler. They recommend her first book and unpack it’s themes on today’s episode.
SHOW NOTES
Sources and Further Reading (in no particular order):
Kate Bowler - “Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I’ve Loved)”
“Life by Ella” Apple+ TV show* about a teen with cancer
*in the podcast Kayla misspoke and said this was a Netflix show
Phillippians 4:7 about the peace that surpasses understanding
TRANSCRIPT
Kayla 0:09
You're listening to the My Sister’s Cancer podcast. I'm Kayla Crum, registered nurse and writer.
Ella 0:15
And I'm Ella Beckett, social worker and cancer survivor.
Kayla 0:20
We're sisters on a mission to care for the cancer community through the sharing of real life stories, a sprinkle of sass, and lots of support.
Ella 0:28
Join us in a new kind of pity party. It's a pity so many of us carry the heavy burden of cancer alone. So let's make it a party and carry it together.
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Kayla 0:42
Welcome back to the My Sister's Cancer podcast. I'm Kayla Crum, one of your co-hosts, here with my sister, Ella Beckett. This week we are going to do the first of what we hope will be a regular feature on the show. You could think of it as a book report from your grade school days. Every season - summer, fall, winter, spring - we'll pick a book that we've read and found valuable related to the cancer experience. It might be directly related, a true cancer story. Or it could be more adjacent, like an illness memoir, more chronic illness, loss, things like that. There's a whole bunch of memoirs out there and essay collections, even poetry, that touch on these hard themes and can be a real way to feel less alone and even process some of your own emotions as you go through a tough experience. I'm a big reader, always have been, and Ella enjoys reading as well, so we thought that we would bring this once a season to you guys, and I'm sure we'll also mention some other books along the way as well. So our first pick is called “Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved)” by Kate Bowler. Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School. She has done extensive research on the Christian concept of the prosperity gospel, written several more academic leaning books about that, and was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in her 30’s when she had a toddler and her husband at home. So she wrote her first memoir about that experience and has since written more books and actually has a podcast called “Everything Happens”, where she has guests on and they discuss the tough things in life. And she's just really been a person that we've looked up to throughout our experience. And by we, I mean our whole family, really. Our mom, too, has gotten a lot of support from listening to Kate's work and reading Kate's work. And I hope that if you haven't heard of her before, lucky you, because you have a whole bunch of content that you can explore, and we'll kind of give you a taste of that today. So before we dive into that book, I wanted to zoom out a little bit and just discuss this whole concept of cancer lit, if you want to call it that. I found myself, during Ella's experience with cancer, and particularly shortly after it was done, like, in the year or two after she was declared in remission, reading every cancer book I could get my hands on. So everything from, like, the classic everyone hears about, “My Sister's Keeper”, which is like a fictionalized novel sort of dramatized about one sister with cancer and one not, uh, all the way to memoir in particular were some of my favorites. So we'll link to a list I have on our website. But I've read books written by the person themselves who's going through cancer, written by their spouse, written by their child. It's hard to find a sibling specific memoir, but I found it very helpful to just process my own journey by reading other people's journeys and the people who write honestly and write about their raw emotions and kind of put to paper some of those things that we're sometimes scared to say out loud. That was all very healing for me. I know some people probably would feel like reading more about other people's struggles would be too soon or too similar to their own experience. I think everyone is different with that. But for me, it's been a really healing aspect of my free time. Has that been true for you, Ella?
Ella 5:10
As you were talking, I was thinking in some ways it's kind of funny because I do feel like I'm that person that you just mentioned. I think I, in many ways, ran in the other direction from everybody else's cancer story. I think because I was so immersed, obviously, in my own stuff, I didn't even have the bandwidth a lot of time for other people's suffering. And that sounds really harsh to say it like that out loud, but even after, kind of, when the dust settled and everything, I know like… I'm really glad that you found this as like a healing balm in some ways. But for me, I don't know if I just didn't really even dip my toes in the water of other people's stories, but I definitely turned to more light-hearted fiction and things that in some ways made me forget about everything in a good way, rather than leaning into the cancer narratives. And I think some of that too, is I have a hard time with how cancer is often portrayed in movies. Like just the over -dramaticized. I don't know, I just struggle a lot with sometimes how it's displayed and I'm wondering if that I was also skeptical of, I don't know, other people describing it in works of literature as well.
Kayla 6:50
Yeah, I hear that. I will say not every book I've read has been amazing. There's been some that I'm like, well, that wasn't my experience at all. Or I can't connect with that. I've definitely experienced what you're talking about when it comes to movies. I almost think - because in most movies we're forced into that third person perspective. You're not hearing the thoughts of the people. It's harder to connect with the raw emotion that people experience around cancer. So I found the first person memoirs to be especially helpful, but I also totally get forgetting about it for a while or like, losing yourself in another world. I definitely sprinkled in fiction as well. I'm one of those people that tends to kind of bounce from genre to genre and fiction to nonfiction, because if I read too many in a row of the same style, I'll get bored. Yeah, so there's probably a place for all of that. But while you were talking, I was thinking about how even when you were sick, you didn't really… I remember they came out with like a bald American Girl doll and like, a bald Barbie, and I thought it was so cool and you were kind of like, whatever. And I don't know if you still feel that way, but what I sense from what you were just saying is that when you're going through it and maybe immediately afterwards, it's probably hard to be like… I would imagine feeling like that doesn't capture my experience. Like, yay, you have a bald Barbie, there's a bald American Girl doll. It's way more complex than that. You know and like, representation and whatever is a good thing, but yeah. So the movies, the dolls, I can see where that kind of almost cheapens your experience or oversimplifies it, maybe.
Ella 08:45
Yeah, I think that's a really good way of saying it. And I also think, like, we've kind of alluded to before, the whole this is a “club” that you really just never wanted to join. And so when I'm experiencing it in fiction or in movies or yeah, even the Barbie dolls and whatever, I'm like, yeah, I don't necessarily even want to be associated with it. You know what I mean? You don't want to be the person with cancer. And then when you see it all over and some people leaning in for the drama and for the - I don't want to say entertainment of it all or, like, sensationalizing cancer, but in some ways, yes, it's almost like you don't want yourself tied to that because you don't even want to admit that you do resonate with it. Does that make any sense, what I'm saying?
Kayla 09:48
Yeah, what I'm hearing is a bit of self-denial, especially when you were in it. And, like, it's maybe easier for you to kind of disassociate yourself with the cancer persona if you weren't all into the movies and the books and the dolls and whatever. I literally - you can't make this stuff up. The Barbie doll is named Ella.
Ella 10:12
Yup.
Kayla 10:13
Like, the cancer Barbie, it literally came out while you were getting treatment, and it was named Ella, and I was just like, for a minute, I was like, wait, is there, like, a variety of names? No, it's like, the cancer Barbie is Ella. And then Netflix made a show about this middle schooler who had cancer, and her name's Ella, too. And, like, 20 years ago, you couldn't find anyone named Ella. You were kind of ahead of the trend there. When we were little, there was nobody else named Ella. But I just like, you can't make that stuff up. It's, like, too ironic. I do think you have one somewhere. Like, I think I got you one. The Ella Barbie.
Ella 10:51
Yeah, I do.
Kayla 10:52
She’s probably in some closet, but.
Ella 10:54
Because I want to go back to what you said. I do think representation matters. Like, I think for especially younger girls, especially who have cancer, like, how cool for them to see a Barbie doll that looks like them. But angsty young adult Ella was not stoked about that.
Kayla 11:15
And maybe even the fact that you were being treated at a children's hospital. So, like, any sort of childish thing that was thrown at you kind of felt like one more thing in this colorful world of stickers and prizes. Like, you were kind of stuck between kid-world and adult-world. Well, we could probably go down that rabbit hole all day. But we do want to tell you a little bit about this specific book. And like I said, Kate Bowler, the author, has so much content for you to read. Most recently, she emailed me - I'm on her email list and she emailed everybody a resource called “Illness Happens”, sort of like links to different podcast episodes and different videos and worksheets and all this stuff for if illness is happening in your life. And then another week she emailed “Church Hurt Happens”, kind of about if you've been hurt by the church. And so this is her most recent thing, is she's kind of going through different things that can happen in your life and sending out like little guides almost, and a bunch of helpful links and resources, which is amazing. So when I first read the book - I looked back because I'm a big nerd who likes to track all my reading. And I saw that I read it in 2021, so actually not that long ago. It came out in 2018. So at that point, Ella had just finished her cancer treatment, or maybe not even quite; [she] had been transplanted recently and I didn't read it for a couple more years and I don't even remember how I found it or heard of it. And by that point I had read several cancer memoirs. And what stuck out to me about this one is A) that she's a beautiful writer. Like, just her sentences and the way that she crafts her feelings into words is just admirable. And as someone who aspires to be a writer like that, it's just like, mind-blowing. But second of all, it was less of, like, a linear storytelling, which in a lot of memoir, you get, this happened and then this happened, and here's how I felt about it. And I find that interesting. But this was a lot more like a collection of thoughts than a straight linear narrative. And because she is a professor at Duke Divinity School and has studied a lot of Christian theology, I mean, she has some big thoughts to wrestle with. The kind of stuff we've talked about on this podcast before, and so I felt so seen by some of what she was wrestling with and even the title, “Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved)”. I just felt so seen by that title. Like, okay, all these Christian platitudes. They don't have to be the answer. And she just got really real about that in the book. What was your first experience with Kate Bowler, Ella?
Ella 14:20
I really don't remember… similar to you, I don't remember how I first came across Kate Bowler or her work. I don't even remember at what point I read the book. But what you were saying about the fact that the storyline is really not linear, that was something that I actually really struggled reading. I really like books that are kind of laid out chronologically, or at least you can easily follow the path. And I felt like her writing was a little bit all over the place, like just bits and pieces of what happened and her thoughts and things she was wrestling with to the point that I think I stopped reading it the first time that I tried to read it. And then I think I came back to it like a year or so later. And I really resonated a lot more with a lot of it, and maybe some of that too, is speaking to what I was saying earlier was like, I don't know if I was in a good headspace or emotionally ready to read other people's cancer experiences. I think it was pretty fresh off of my own experience that I first tried reading it. And I also think I was less familiar with a lot of what she was talking about in reference to the prosperity gospel and just some of the things that she was wrestling with with her faith. So the second time that I tried reading it, I really resonated with a lot of it and really loved it. And then I actually just reread it again to refresh my memory. And the this third time around, I guess you could say I liked it even more because I've grown to know and love her from afar as a reader of her work.
Kayla 16:19
Yeah, her podcast is really moving. Her other books are great too, if you're looking for a more linear narrative. Her second memoir, “No Cure For Being Human”, I would say it's a bit more of a linear plot. She almost goes back and kind of sums up what you got in the first memoir, at least from a “here's what happened” perspective, and then continues to talk about her life. And that's definitely more of a survivorship narrative in the second book, “No Cure For Being Human”. Which I found helpful, too, because that is a weird transition to go from active treatment or even like what they call maintenance treatment into kind of well, we'll see. And for Kate, as with a lot of cancer survivors, if I'm understanding correctly, her cancer is never truly totally gone. They've just sort of like, suppressed it and she's going to live until it grows again and then they'll kind of treat it again. And I know a lot of people are in that boat, whereas for you, Ella, it was kind of like we did the transplant and now it's been five years, so you're officially cured, which is such a distinct line that a lot of people don't get. And yet even we have pondered the messiness of survivorship, even though we were working towards that five year mark. It's just so weird to live in that gray space of like, well, will the radiation cause a secondary cancer down the line? You just, once you have had that cancer experience, you really do live in a new space. And Kate is really good at talking about that in her second book.
Ella 18:18
I think one of the things that really stood out to me the more recent time that I read her book was how much what she was talking about are themes that we've already discussed on previous episodes of our podcast. And I think that just speaks to how much we appreciate and resonate with her work too. But if you are curious or were wanting to wrestle more with a variety of different things, she just really touches on certainty and really the lack of certainty that we have in this life. Control, like we talked about a few episodes ago, how much cancer takes the control away from you and the things that we do have control over her. She speaks to fairness and how life really isn't fair. And she also talks about God's plan and how a lot of times that phrasing is used in Christian circles. Kayla, were there any other themes that I'm missing?
Kayla 19:30
Not that I can think of. Those are some big hefty themes for sure. And she does a great job of pulling it down into your real lived life. She talks just a lot about her life with her toddler and her life at her job and kind of like how these big ideas kind of haunt you and walk around with you in your everyday life. One thing is that she - I'll direct quote her here, she says: “Everyone is trying to Easter the crap out of my Lent.” Which, if you're not familiar, Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter in the Christian calendar, where we are typically more somber and reflect on Jesus’ death and the fallenness of the world and just kind of take a moment to be with all of the darkness before we celebrate Christ's resurrection on Easter. And so there is a portion of the book where she talks about people “Eastering the crap out of her Lent.” Where like, we love to skip to the part where he's risen, right, and like, we love to skip to the part where someone's feeling better or where it was all for something good or here's something that came out of it. Like, in your own story, Ella, you could be like, “And then she met her husband at a cancer support group.” Yeah, but that doesn't erase all of the pain that it took to get there. So that's just also a little taste of her style. She's, like, so beautiful in her writing, but then you feel like you're almost just sitting there talking to her because she'll say things like, “Easter the crap out of my Lent.” She definitely has a little bit of flippancy in there that makes you just feel like, okay, she's this real person who I could chat with. And if you listen to her podcast, she has this great laugh too, that just, I don't know, makes me feel seen. One thing she talked about that stuck out to me and I wanted to ask you about, is about, like, two thirds or three quarters of the way into the book, she talks about how right after she was diagnosed, she had this almost, like, weird sort of peace and love surround her. It was just this feeling of, like, God's presence of peace and love. Like, not that everything was okay, like, she was still upset about it and all this stuff, but she almost just had this almost, like, out of body experience persisting for, like, weeks, where she just had this peace that surpasses understanding. And I definitely have not had that in relation to your cancer. And I kind of feel like, Ella, when you first were diagnosed, you almost seemed to have that sense, at least from my external perspective. Like, me and mom and dad were floundering, and you were like, “I picked the phrase it is well with my soul for my phrase of the year, and I'm going to stick with that.” And were very kind of above the pit of yuck that the rest of us were in. So did you relate to that part of the book?
Ella 22:45
Yeah, I really resonated with that. And what's interesting is yes, I definitely think I had that the first time around, like, right after diagnosis. But one of the times that really stands out to me was was when I had to be inpatient for my transplant. I can't even describe how close I felt to the Lord in that moment. And it was truly, like, probably some of the worst days of my entire life. Right? I was right down in bed just feeling absolutely terrible. And it was Christmas, all the things, and yet I just felt this surreal… yeah. That love and that peace and being held almost. I think I definitely understood to some extent what she was saying in the book about that, and she writes so beautifully about it. And also, I do also resonate with the fact she talks about how, unfortunately, that doesn't last. Right? It's a fleeting feeling, and I remember that too. You don't want those terrible moments to happen, obviously, but when you feel that overwhelming peace and love and closeness to the Lord, then it's like you almost don't want it to be over because you know that feeling is going to go away. And it does, unfortunately. Other good things come your way, but it's not the same closeness. And I think we hear that phrase a lot, like “the peace that surpasses understanding.” And I always had heard that growing up and was like, yeah, okay, I know what that means, blah, blah, blah. But no, I don't think I did until I actually experienced it in my own body.
Kayla 24:57
Yeah, I'll read a little excerpt here, my Kindle is telling me it's page 121, she says about that feeling: “It seemed too odd and too simplistic to say what I knew to be true, that when I was sure I was going to die, I didn't feel angry. I felt loved. In those first few days after my diagnosis, when I was in the hospital, I couldn't see my son, I couldn't get out of bed, and I couldn't say for certain that I would survive the year. But I felt as though I'd uncovered something, like a secret about faith. Even in lucid moments, I found my feelings so difficult to explain. I kept saying the same thing: I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back.” And I definitely resonated with that last bit because it… yeah, I wouldn't want to go back either. And that's easier for me to say, having not gone through it myself. Of course I want to spare you what you went through. And yet some sort of weird thing happened to all of us in that I feel like we're all better people now. And I think we've mentioned that before on the podcast. So it's just so strange that you can hate it with every fiber of your being, and yet some part of you is also, I cringe to say, grateful.
Ella 26:14
Yeah.
Kayla 26:15
I don't even know. That's a tricky feeling.
Ella 26:20
Yeah. And just the way she writes. Thank you for reading that excerpt, because her prose is just so beautiful, especially for people who really do love reading and writing. I think you'll just especially love her work.
Kayla 26:39
She has this chapter where she talks about how she just started swearing all the time and how there's actually research that people who are grieving or suffering swear a lot more because the limits of the English language… there's just, like, nothing left to say except bad words. Another quote I loved was she said: “I keep having the same unkind thought. I am preparing for death, and everyone else is on Instagram.” And I was just like, that's so accurate. It's like, funny and sad at the same time, right?
Ella 27:13
Yeah.
Kayla 27:14
Something I had missed the first time I read the book, and that stood out to me this time, is she talked briefly about the concept of she always thought grief was about looking back, people looking back and being like, I wish I had made this decision. I wish I would have done that differently. Should, should But she was like, I'm grieving because I'm looking forward, and I don't know how long I have, and I'm grieving what I thought was going to happen and what I'll never get to see. And that just felt so true to me. I feel like the best writing makes you just have that little ping inside where you're like, oh, that's truth. And that's what we've talked about some on this podcast. Like, y ou know, what we thought our family would look like, what we thought our future would look like. All of those things changed and you kind of have to grieve the future. Yeah, people don't really talk about that.
Ella 28:13
Yeah the could-have-beens or should-have-beens or would-have-beens.
Kayla 28:19
I will say I remember going into this book thinking it was going to be like organized by a list because it's called “Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved)”. So I thought each chapter would be like other lies and she'd kind of unpack each one. That's definitely not it. But she does have two appendices in the back. One is like, what not to say, and one is, here's something to try instead, which we kind of covered on our response episode. I think it's episode three of our podcast, but I found those funny. She kind of quotes people and then gives a little couple-of-sentence reflection on why it's good or not so good. And she has some good suggestions in the back of what to say instead. One of them was, “Can I give you a hug?” Which I don't think we've really talked about on this podcast before. She knows everyone would feel differently about this, but she mentioned, and I relate to this as a nurse, that when you're in the hospital, touch just becomes this mechanical, sterile thing. And the doctors and nurses are touching you, but not with tender, loving care. Right? They're, like, hooking you up to stuff. They're pressing on your abdomen. They're doing all this stuff. So you get touched a lot, but not in this intimate, loving way. Or even, I don't mean intimate, like a partner, like a friend. None of that caring touch. And you might be in pain. And I think sometimes even people who aren't suffering hesitate to touch people who are. And so she suggests just asking. And I had never really… I don't know why that didn't hit me the first time I read the book, but this time I was, yeah, wow. Like, that's a good point. Did you experience any of that, Ella?
Ella 30:06
Yeah, I definitely hear what you're saying about, like, when you're in the hospital being starved of just that normal, loving, friendly touch. And it's so interesting because I feel like it depends on the moment, like, what my answer to that question would be. I think of myself in some of those moments, whether in the hospital or just out and about in my life. Sometimes when I'm upset or angry, I just want people to stay away from me. I think that's just like, a coping mechanism for me is like, I just push people away, so someone asking if they can give me a hug, I mean, some days I'd be like, yes, please. Like, I need that. And then other days I'd be like, no, thank you, but thanks for asking. So, yeah, I think that's a really helpful approach.
Kayla 31:07
Just hearing you say that made me think I might phrase it: “Do you want a hug? Do you need a hug?” Because “Can I give you a hug?” is kind of like… I don't want the person on the receiving end to feel like, okay, like, I'm obligated. I want to make them feel better. They want me to hug them. So if you're like, hey, if you need a hug, I'm a hugger. Like, something like that. But yeah. So I guess in review, don't expect a list throughout the book of lies and don't expect a super linear memoir, but if you're looking for beautiful, reflective prose that also veers funny and relatable, Kate Bowler and this book and really all of her work is an excellent resource to engage with, and I highly recommend it. Maybe get your feet wet with her podcast, she's had people like Katie Couric on there, so she's, like, kind of a big deal. So, like, just scroll through her feed and pick one of the podcasts that, you know, stands out to you, and then, if you like it, maybe read one of the books. Because I just think that sometimes we get stuck in our own thought patterns, and for a lot of us - and this is part of why we started this podcast - you don't have a lot of people in your life who, quote, “get it,” right? So having a person who you don't have a personal relationship with, that you can just read their complete story. And, I mean, clearly it's been edited, but they're pretty vulnerable in these cancer memoirs. They put it out there because otherwise it doesn't really connect with the reader.
Ella 33:00
Yeah, I think as much as we've referenced her work, even on earlier episodes - I want to say it's multiple episodes at this point. And I think, like I said earlier, I think that's just a testament to her work and how refreshing we found her to be. Really, that's one of the main words that I would use to describe her, is just like a breath of fresh air, because she just says it, like even the hardest stuff. She just… dwells in the tough stuff, but with grace and beauty and all the things and yeah, I just can't recommend her stuff enough.
Kayla 33:39
It's funny. Her website, katebowler.com, says “incurable optimist” about her. And I just want to say, like, I get, because I've read a lot of her work, what they mean by that. But don't think that means she's here for the toxic positivity. She's the opposite of that. So, I mean, she always puts a spin on it that ends with hope. I just sometimes feel like, I went to her website recently and I was like, oh, if I didn't know her work, I'd be like, I don't need an incurable optimist in my life. But once you've read her work, you're like, she is an optimist. But she wrestles through everything. So disclaimer. If you're going to stop listening to our podcast and go look up her website, don't let that turn you off. I really encourage you to explore her work because we have, like Ella said, found it so refreshing. Yeah. So that's our first book report. There's so many other books out there for you to read. We'll put a link in the show notes. I have a book list of ones that I've read and recommend on the website. And, yeah, we'll do this at least once a season, recommend a book and an author, I guess, in the larger cancer community for you to read.
Ella 35:09
Next week, we'll be discussing superficiality, how things can just feel really superficial, and how it's hard to connect with people. Again, thank you for joining us on this episode and we will see you next week.