WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

This image touches the true essence of stage 4 cancer. But it is not what you think, unfortunately. They are not lovers, hanging on to each other before one of them vanishes for ever. They are not a mother and child sticking together till death does them part. It is not someone who is near the end of the cancer battle, clinging desperately to life in stage 4. Since I saw my ex-wife for the very last time, only weeks before she was obliterated by stage 4 cancer in a mist of bone and liver metastasis, leaving her barely recognizable — even for a person who once knew her so well — I see this painting representing an entirely different aspect of the stage 4 horror. Because I saw her empty eyes. Her lack of posture because all life was gone. The total absence of color around her, although she was simply in between us. The broken will to live. This painting depicts something else. An embrace. And it is the cancer which is holding on, deeper and deeper. Sucking al...