Who do you want to get rid of someone who's just had a tumor?

Before the tumor I had a job for a company. I worked for them for one year and a half. It’s been one of the best moments of my life. What I did was who I was. My role and people I was working with were a mix that gave me the sense of who I was. Then I had the nighttime seizure that landed me in the hospital. And once again in my life everything changed.

While I was starting to recover from surgery, I was preparing a song to play on the guitar during the first call I'd make. I practiced every day, knowing that my voice was terrible. And damn it, I believed in it.

Like an idiot, I'd open my phone, grab my new guitar, strum a few chords, and start singing. I tried and tried again.

It's like that idea you have in your head about being a parent. There's a huge gap between that idea and the reality you experience over the years. I imagined a warm welcome, flexibility and other bullshit.

They told me kind words. The option I'd been given to wait to return. Because there was no rush. I could take my time.

And as time went on, and I felt better, I realized how much I missed my work and the desire to return. How much I missed my colleagues and all those people I now considered friends.

What I didn't know was that they were figuring out how to take away the job I'd worked so hard for.

The recurring image in my head is of a couple of managers on a call, saying to each other that if someone has had a tumor, they don't need to worry. Even in a company reorganization, no one would dare touch you.

Even if a company is going through a tough time, who would ever get rid of someone who's just had a tumor?

The exact question was: "Who do you want to get rid of someone who's just had a tumor?"

The phrase has stuck with me somewhere in my memory. And it smells of vomit. It smells of the pain of those days. Loneliness. Sleepless nights. Medication. Crutches. Medication. Hours alone on the sunny terrace. The stupid idea of waiting to return. Electrodes stuck into my head, right into the flesh. Blood bags to regain strength. Seizures. Nurses looking for me as I wandered out of the ward. Me falling down the stairs again and again. Broken glasses. A phone to be thrown away.

Those same managers disappeared at some point. They became messages that reached me sporadically. For months, none of them had had the courage to tell me that my job was no longer there.

Despite the tumor, I was no longer needed and they were going to let me go. They knew it. They had known for months. While I was falling down the stairs. While I was spending nights in the bathroom crying. While I was drinking chocolate at four in the morning alone, staring into space. While I was taking sleeping pills. They knew.

I ended up in that situation where no one directly pressed a button to say that I was out. No one clearly said I had to leave. That I had to choose between having a role that wasn't mine and leaving. It simply happened because no one acted in my defense. If no one does anything, no one is guilty.

So why did I lose my job while I had a tumor? Because no one acted in my defense. The sad truth.

No one does anything. No one has the courage to defend me, and it happened. It happened that I had a tumor and I have been out of a company. As I write this, after a year and a half, I know I'm repeating something I've told myself many times inside. And I know that now it's something that belongs to my past. I don't feel anything. I don't feel pain.

I'm glad I was able to forgive. To forgive the cynicism with which they acted. None of them have ever asked me how I'm doing. None of them have written to me anymore. I don't know how they are or how they live with what they did to me.

Said clearly, it sounds pretty bad. While I had a tumor, they were looking for the best way to tell me that my job was no longer there. They didn't have the courage to tell me and they waited as long as possible to do so. When they couldn't wait any longer, they tried to avoid the responsibility of being the last ones to tell me that I no longer had a job.

Meanwhile, none of them wrote to me, and as soon as a financial agreement was reached, they disappeared. Obviously, they left all the bureaucratic parts to another colleague, so as to delegate to someone else the management of this bag of vomit.

And I don't hate them. I'm sincerely proud of not feeling hate. I just feel so sorry for them. Pity for their behavior. Their silence. Their embarrassment. The movement of their shoulders in unison during a call. While I told them I wouldn't accept a different role and preferred a financial settlement.

Another reel in my mind is the movement of their shoulders, as they realize they got rid of a tumor patient.

Today I was talking to my daughter about what it means to have the courage to stay true to one's ideals. What the cost is. She knows part of this story. But not all of it. I don't want to tell her the whole story.

I would disappoint the enthusiasm with which she looks at her life and the world she has just begun to explore.