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The Lunch Bunch talks about everything, including cancer

By Carl Heintze

I know five women who get together for lunch once a month.

They've been doing this for about 40 years.

They call themselves The Lunch Bunch.

Each month one of them is in charge. She picks out the place where they are to gather--it's seldom, if ever the same place--and on the appointed day and hour they all show up for lunch and a talk.

The chat (and lunch) usually lasts an hour and a half or so, then they all go back to their respective houses and husbands.

As I say, the five have been doing this for four decades or so. They became acquainted through a local woman's organization, found they liked talking to one another, started meeting for lunch when both they and their families were much younger, and through the years have kept up the contact.

It used to be they arranged their get-togethers by telephoning one another, but these days it's all done by e-mail--with an occasional phone call to check on time and place.

The children they once cared for are now grown, married and in their mid-years and all five are grandmothers. One is a great-grandmother.

In their day they must have covered almost every place there is to eat on the west side of Silicon Valley. You can test this with them by asking about a specific restaurant. Unless it is a very new one, they probably can give you a brief review on food, service, location and the like.

This group would be just like any other group of women who get together to talk about their families, the state of the world and so on--except for one thing.

All the members of The Lunch Bunch are cancer survivors.

Three have had breast cancer, one has had colon cancer and the fifth has been recovering from a lymphoma. All except the lymphoma sufferer have had cancer surgery of one kind or another, and all have successfully gotten beyond that.

All have had some form of chemotherapy.

It's a measure of where we are in the treatment of cancer that all five freely admit their disease. In fact, all five wear bracelets to indicate they're cancer survivors.

They're not exactly proud of having been ill, but they are proud, and rightfully so, of having been able to deal with their disease successfully.

In a day now thankfully past, this probably would not have been so. For reasons which have never been clear (at least to me), there was a time when cancer was discussed only in hushed tones, as if it were somehow a sin or unclean or a social disease.

Half a century or more ago people just didn't talk about cancer, no matter what its form, in polite company. They whispered about it, but they certainly didn't let anyone else know what was going on. Perhaps this was because, in another time, cancer often affected organs, both male and female, which were not mentioned in polite company.

Thankfully, that's no longer so. And besides, cancer can affect any part of the body, private or not, and we need to be able to talk about it.

This frankness has been a boon to The Lunch Bunch.

They have been able to gather considerable strength by sharing their joint problems with one another. They've proved cancer is socially acceptable.

This is not to say they are out of the woods. They all are aware of what's happened to them and of their mortality. But for them cancer is no longer the dark shadow in the closet. It is now possible to confront the disease for what it is: something to be overcome.

As an aside, all their five husbands save one have had problems with their prostates, the male cancer which seems to come along about the time female cancers show up, too.

The males, while friendly, don't get together for lunch (or much of anything else), and they don't talk about their prostates or any other health problems. Men, especially American men, have yet to figure out how to share things. American men tend to think they're John Wayne, able to handle minor things like disease solo. Stiff upper lip and all that sort of thing.

So as a male, my hat is off to The Lunch Bunch. They're an example of how to deal with one of life's tough problems and to do it in a pleasant and tasteful way.

Would that we could all deal with all life over the luncheon table and come out as successfully as does The Lunch Bunch.

And would that we all could establish lasting and loving relationships that span almost half a lifetime.