The C word.

It's funny how your life can be touched by something and yet, you forget to think of how many other people's lives are affected by the same thing.

Tonight my aunt and I watched a movie on the Lifetime channel about a man who found a successful drug for treating breast cancer, a drug which has saved many lives. As I watched, I was reminded of the many families, children, parents, sisters, brothers, etc. have been affected by cancer.

Sometimes, it seems strange that my mom died of lung cancer. I don't think about it as much as I used to. I mean, I wasn't there when she came home from the chemo. I wasn't there when she was getting sicker and sicker. I wasn't the one who had to take care of her. Sometimes, it's easy for me to forget how she died. I was at school. she TOLD me to stay at school. She didn't want me to quit school, not even for her. Not even when she might have suspected the limited amount of time she had left. She asked me to stay in school. So I did.

I went to Relay for Life the year she died. During the victory lap, when all those people who have beaten cancer get to walk around, I cried. Why. Why couldn't my mom have been one of them? I went the year after that. And the year after that. Even though my mom didn't beat cancer, I don't want to forget, I don't want to forget those many other people who have. I want to be joyful for their families and for the time they were given back.

Sometimes when I think about cancer, I think of it as a death sentence. It was such for my mom. I always am skeptical of people who give money to fighting for "the cure" and for giving money to breast cancer research. To me, it's unbeatable. I don't understand their fight.

Yet. People have beaten cancer. They have become cancer free. They have been able to live after cancer. Sometimes, this makes me confused. Why are some condemned to die? What is it that causes some to live and some to die? All life is a chance. Every day there is a chance that we could die. I suppose cancer simply increases that chance. These thoughts add to my confusion.

I called cancer the C word, because it's one of those words that automatically triggers a response in each of us. I know it should comfort me that others have walked a similar road. I know I shouldn't complain too much because death is in fact, a part of life and we will all lose someone we love. I know that even on a hard road, I have been richly and amazingly blessed.

I will never understand in this lifetime. I will never understand why my mom died before I graduated college. I will never understand why she won't be here on my wedding day. Or why she couldn't have been here to see her son graduate high school. I won't ever understand.

The blessing that I have been given is life. I know she would want me to live it fully and richly. She wouldn't want me to stop living just because she couldn't be here. I know that life can be full of joy even while walking roads of sorrow. I hope that as I continue to get older, I will do her well.

If I could send you words:

Miss you. Love you.

End.