I find that this “f*ck cancer” phrase isn’t even powerful enough anymore.  It doesn’t hurt cancer.  It doesn’t kill it.  And it doesn’t make me feel better.  Cancer comes in so many forms with so many words, and sometimes people survive it, and sometimes they don’t.  Those are the facts.  And I am so tired of all of the different stories.  I’m happy for the ones that include words like “remission” and “survivor” and “cancer-free”, but they all still involve cancer to begin with and therefore, I think, a quiet, far-away fear that maybe it will come back.  There is a wonderfully insightful song by Melissa Etheridge called “I Run For Life” that well describes the scars, the haunting, and living as someone who has had cancer.

I went to high school with a guy who was always a really solid guy.  Good to know, someone you could count on, funny, honest.  He came from a good family, we went to the same church, and I don’t recall a bad thing I could say about any of them (the guy or his family).  I guess it’s fine if I say his name, because none of what I am going to say is a secret.  His name is Joel, and he met and married a super nice gal named Amy.  I never got to know Amy very well because we lived in different cities when they got married, and then they had kids – Joel is a couple of years older than me and I guess Amy is around that age, and their sons are close to the age of my nephew who is 10.  So, you know, we’re all grown up and busy and sometimes I would see them at church and my sister said Amy was FANTASTIC and I agreed that she seemed nice, and I knew Joel would only have married someone very nice, and I always liked seeing them twice a year when I went to church during a home visit.  We even scheduled a triple-date once with my sister and me and our spouses and Joel and Amy, but then life interfered and it never happened.

For as long as I can remember, Amy has had cancer.  Her CaringBridge site (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/amymadden/journal) was created in 2010 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, which – if I understand and recall correctly from reading the posts – metastasized, sometimes showed signs of improvement/steadiness, and has now spread to a point where they have decided that this young, lovely, mother of two, wife of my friend, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and friend of many, is not in a position to fight any more.  I hate writing it that way, as if she is a quitter.  She isn’t.  There’s nothing but fight in a woman who has so much to live for, and a woman who’s spent the last 9 years trying to live a full life with cancer inside of her.  I can only imagine (imagine all I’ve done since I read the post) what it’s like to (1) be diagnosed with cancer, (2) have a cancer you know won’t go away, and (3) be told the day has come where your successful treatment options have ended.  Today is the day you talk about hospice and – with more finality – about how long.  Today you look at your family, including those children you were meant to raise, and you know there are things you will leave unfinished.  How?  Why?

I was thinking tonight that one of the ways we honor those who are leaving us is to acknowledge all of these losses.  I will think about everything Amy should be able to do and cannot.  I will think about everything her children and husband should be able to do with her and cannot.  I will think about the milestones she will miss.  I will think how impossibly hard it must be to be a young child without a mother, and a father without the mother to his young children.

I don’t think God wills these things.  When people are healed, we say, “God is good!” and, “He answered our prayers!”  What do we say now?  That He denied us?  That He found some benefit in taking this precious life?  Absolutely not.  I know He is more powerful than cancer and I don’t know why this is happening…again.  I know that’s where faith comes in, but sometimes faith feels like letting a lot of stuff slide.  I know God knows we’re angry and hurt.  I know He understands.  I wish He could make me understand.

I hope you read Amy’s CaringBridge site and get to know her and Joel (the writer).  I hope you find a cure for all cancers.  But one of those is more realistic than the other, so please get to reading.

And pray, or send good vibes, or ask me where to send a card, or do whatever it is you like to do for people who are probably the saddest they have ever been at this moment.  (I’m referring to the Maddens, not me.  But that is not to say there aren’t some tears in my keyboard right now.)

Thank you, as always, for your love and reading.