Cancer is a horrid circumstance.. a outright awful ailment, and a continuous plague that hits without forgiveness or mercy.
I trust that you, the reader, most likely have been faced with a family member of friend succumbing to this affliction.. There are endless tales of horror from children's hospitals and nursing homes. No one can escape this scourge, so often..
I am writing this brief post tonight to get some emotion off my chest.
Recently, my uncle and godfather passed away after too long of a fight with cancer. He fought to stay alive. Fate would have it another way. When he lost his battle, he left behind a family of people who have yet to stop completely grieving his death.
And now, this night, a close friend of mine finds himself in an unsettling place: A hospital bed with tubes and monitors attached to him.. he beat one form of cancer only to find out it spread to another place. Suddenly, he has taken a major turn for the worse..
I hate cancer.
I hate all disease actually.
I'm 34. Half my audience may think I'm ancient. The other half probably thinks I still have a world of life ahead of me. But as I age, I find myself becoming more serious in my studies of many things.. contemplating morals and justice becomes difficult with time, however. Billy Joel's ANGRY YOUNG MAN described a person who once believed in causes and had a pointless point of view but life went on no matter who was wrong or right. Those lyrics become truer by the day. By the moment..
As you age, you also say goodbye to many people you loved or befriended.
And often they leave with the help of a disease...
With cancer..
With the ultimate boogeyman of the medical system.
I bet any money that you--the reader--is also dealing with loss, or recently has dealt with it. You have probably even read a self-help book or website explaining how to deal with loss.. maybe you have tried to vacation. Get away from things.. But it never goes away. There is no alternative to the life we have now besides not living it. While we inhabit our temples of the soul, we will be hit with crises and upheaval.. Sometimes smiles. Sometimes frowns. And sometimes, just like those we see dying before our eyes, the same sickness that took them..
I am angry tonight.
Sad..
Accepting of it all, too.
A mixture of emotions.
But that is what life has become.
Either it's a mixture of emotions or it turns into the final scene of THE MEANING OF LIFE..
So many highs.. so often lows. So many twists and turns and ironic shifts of fate..
x x x
People sometimes become mentally disenfranchised after being drained by loss. The human ruin--one we hardly see..
Everyone has a story. Each and every person who walks too slow in front of you, or who is trying to pass you on the interstate.. the man who glances at you as you walk on a street.. or that elderly woman who vacantly stares out of a window of a dark and dingy nursing home.
Our stories are filled with joy and raw horror.
But we all have a story.
Maybe it's time we stop just judging everyone else and start accepting our differences, move on and stop caring about those causes that the ANGRY YOUNG MAN couldn't realize didn't matter before it was too late.
And find a cure for cancer..
Because that has to go away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYV6XTA4b0M
