My blog's entitled "It's a Wanderfull Life, " so why on earth would I be talking about something so serious, something so grave and depressing? And the answer? Because I don't write fiction. I write what's real and what hits home, and I write about every aspect of this life. I do believe that life can be wonderful, but that in no way means that it's going to be clear blue skies and joy rides all along the way. I guess the true test of whether or not you have a wonderful life comes in deciding whether or not the trials and hardships and straight-up crap of this world are going to keep you down or allow you to become the person you were designed to be. Cancer is awful. It's an incessant, undermining, emotionless bully. And I hate it. I hate how it tears families apart. I hate how it tears the patient apart. I hate how it is tearing the world apart. And I hate how it's winning.
It may sound cliche, but I'll say it all the more, if I had one wish, it wouldn't be that cancer could be cured, it would be that cancer ceased to exist altogether. I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I've spent dwelling on this, on that absolutely extraordinary idea. I've never been an emotional person. Except about cancer. It seems so distant and so unassuming when you don't know anyone really close to you who has it, but when someone you love more than life itself lets you in on those fateful words, cancer goes from being a monstar you've heard of before to being a convicted murderer that you see face-to-face in the courtroom. First, you get mad; you get so mad. You want to teach cancer a lesson. And then you get sad; you get so sad. You spend night after night crying and praying and sometimes even wishing that you could take your grandpa's or your cousin's or your friend's place. And then you become resilient; you become so resilient. You're able to look cancer in the face and say, "Back off jerk, you don't belong here anymore."
But it still is never the same. You can't take back those years that your loved one spent recovering from invasive surgeries or enduring round after round of chemotherapy. You can't always get back the sparkle that was once in their eyes or the soft, soothing sunlight that once flooded from every word they spoke. You can't always get back the vivacious energy and life that touched everything they did before it all. But sometimes, you can get pretty darn close.
And then all the treatment and all the tiredness and all the emotional storms become worth it. Hugs are a little bit tighter. Smiles are a little bit bigger. And schedules are a little less relevant. Life is no longer about living but about revelling and soaking and sharing and loving. You no longer breathe in air, you breathe in opportunity and gratitude and sweet, sweet... sweetness.
Do I hate cancer? More than almost anything else. I wish cancer would get some sort of untreatable cancer. I want people to live without worry that they will get cancer or that their cancer will come back or that someone near and dear to their hearts will get cancer. It sucks, and for the life of me, I cannot get over how angry and upset it makes me. But I've realized that life doesn't have some happiness guarantee. Essentially, it owes me nothing. But I've made a promise to myself that I will make the best of every moment this life gives me. Worry doesn't add a single hour to this life; fear doesn't make things any easier. So the threat of cancer's not bringing me down. No way, no how. I'm blessed and nothing will get in the way of this wanderfull life. I can only wish that others will soon come to believe the same.
Stay positive. Stay strong. And never, ever, ever give cancer the pride of a job well done.
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