Secrets

Wow! Priest and spiritual companion are pretty big in the secret-keeping business… that’s fairly obvious and sometimes the secrets are good, and sometimes they’re sad, but it is a great privilege to be able to offer someone forgiveness and God’s love when they’ve shared a secret that they have carried heavily on their heart - perhaps for a long time.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had the chance to contemplate, and try to figure out, another kind of secret-keeping: personal information. Two weeks ago today I received The Big C diagnosis - a malignant nodule on my thyroid. If you have to have cancer, it’s the best kind to have, and all in all my prognosis is excellent. But here’s the catch: do I tell people I have cancer? Do I just pretend nothing has happened, nothing is different, even though I’m going through hell inside and full of questions for people who have already had this experience? Do I keep the secret?

What to do? I live in a small community where news spreads faster than wildfire! There is no such thing as just telling ‘a few of my closest friends’. First of all, priests don’t have close friends in their community - if they’re wise - and my closest friend has a pretty loose tongue! Do I believe in the power of prayer? If I do, I must ask to be put on prayer lists, and people always want to know why. And what does it say if the priest doesn’t want to be prayed for? - doesn’t believe in prayer? Ohhhhhh…. not good.

OK. So, decision made - I’m gonna tell people. Now, where to start? Who ‘deserves’ to know first? Well, ok - my boss (after my family, of course). And then perhaps the friend who encouraged me to go to the clinic when the lump was really annoying me (rather than waiting for an appointment a month later)… and of course my close friend (with the loose tongue) … and then a couple of cancer survivors who I really admire and look to for support and encouragement … and even though I’ve been careful to tell people The Whole Truth, the story still manages to get warped!

So, did I do the right thing? Should I have kept the secret after all? It’s really not a very serious cancer - perhaps I’m making a big deal out of nothing… Secrets: to keep or not to keep? What constitutes a secret, after all?