We live in a unique era of television.  There is some of the very best and very worst out there for our entertainment. Some of it is pornographic, gruesome, dark, pollution of the soul.  Some of it, on the other hand, is superbly written, challenging, uplifting and dead accurate.  Last week’s episode of Parenthood was spot on.  It portrayed to a tee what it is like living check up to check up.  

For most of the world, probably including extended family, the pronouncement that you are cancer free is the end of it. Hallelujah.  Praise God. All those months of chemo, radiation, surgeries worked.  It’s over.  Close that ugly chapter and start a new one. 

But that’s not the reality.  The show focused on Kristina who is a breast cancer survivor, a mother and a political activist.  A mover and a shaker.  She is the soul of her family as so many women are. She is her husband’s rock. She is what makes the family work.  She has her six month check up.  No biggie.  But it is, and the show brilliantly portrayed all of the emotions and consequences of that.

First of all there is the club you have inadvertently joined and have grown comfortable being part of: the captive audience in the doctor’s waiting room.  You look around at the cast of characters. No body talks.  That’s the unwritten rule.  But you look and you compare and you judge.  At least I do.  That person reeks of smoke, how dare they take up space on this planet.  That person is fifty pounds over weight.  Each person’s self destructive behavior is a personal affront to you because you are doing everything in your power to get well but these slackers deserve to be here. Not you. Then there are the ones in wheel chairs or walkers who have attendants.  They are your future.  They are the enemy.  As you wait for your name to be called you are sizing up the competition. Yes, somehow they are the competition in this cosmic chess game of who lives and who dies. OK, these are my thoughts.  Not Kristina’s.  She is compassionate, she makes friends with her fellow patients. Meets them for lunch. Visits them in the hospital. I can learn from her.

Then there’s the waiting for test results.  Again, the producers of Parenthood knocked it out of the park. Kristina has internalized her anxiety.  It’s her life after all, and she has learned to compartmentalize.  She has a young baby, so she must try to focus on the day at hand.  Adam, however, cannot.  Each tick of the clock is an eternity for him.  He dissects the doctors words.  He said a couple of days, that means two, right.  He watches the clock for 48 hours.  Then he starts holding his breath.  When she finally receives the phone call with the good news, Adam breaks into tears. Hard, sobbing, snotty tears. It was some of the most moving and accurate TV I’ve seen. Rick and I looked at each other with understanding.  Words were not necessary.

But the aspect they really handled insightfully is how illness robs you of your future.  Kristina and Adam want to start a charter school for their autistic son Max.  When she is healthy, Kristina has boundless energy and she is a person who walks the talk.  She not only cares about certain causes, she acts upon them.  Adam initially tried to reign her in.  He didn’t want her to expend her limited energy on things that might cause stress and run the risk of her cancer returning.  It’s just un friggin believable the role stress plays in our lives.  It creates fertile soil for cancer to grow and God knows what else.  But Adam loves Kristina so he chooses to support her activist endeavors.  (She ran for mayor and lost).  But in this episode, he and Kristina are challenged by Max’s English teacher about their long term commitment to running a charter school. To the healthy viewer, it’s as simple as that.  But it’s not about that at all. It’s all about Kristina. Will she be alive that long?  Do they plan their lives beyond the five year survival window?  Do they make long term commitments? Do they have long term goals?  By the end of the show, the answer to this question is “yes.”  Adam and Kristina decide to live their lives as if they are going to live. But the show didn’t leave it at that with some schmaltzy ending. They made it crystal clear that this entire hellacious process will be repeated in another six months and another six months after that.  They won this battle but the war rages on.