How do you distinguish between the happy tears that someone has finished their treatment, that they are "cancer free", that they can finally get back to the life they should have been allowed to live for the last year, and the sad tears shed for the child who never gets to know what that feels like? The one who will never hear they are cancer free, never know what it feels like to live a normal life again, the one who knows they only have months, or days, to pack a full lifetime into? They are the tears that no one should ever have to shed. Whether the happy or the sad ones, they are both tears brought on by cancer, and it's not fair that those tears exist. No one should have to hear that diagnosis, endure that treatment, live in fear that such an ugly disease could creep up again at any time. No one should have to hear that it's over, there's nothing left to do, your body has lost the fight even if the mind and the heart aren't ready to give up. No one should have to live that way and no one should have to die that way. No parent should have to decide when enough is enough and no child should have to endure it.
How do you respond when someone tells you it's not fair? They're right, it's NOT fair. And nothing you say or do will fix it or make it better. How can you possibly help when the specialists that are trained to help can't do anything more?
How do you help someone say goodbye? You can't tell them what to say, or do, or feel. You can tell them to take it one day at a time, but would you be able to do that if you were in their shoes? How can you feel anything other than completely helpless at a time when someone needs so much help?
And for the ones that make it through the treatment, that get a second chance at life, how do you put into words how proud you are of them, how happy you are for them, how much of a difference they have made in your life, that they've marked a little piece of your heart and restored a lilttle bit of your faith?
How is it that your heart can break every time you walk through the door to work, and also ache for the time away when you don't see those kids? How can someone so small make such a big mark? How and why and the questions no one can answer...
How is it that your heart can break every time you walk through the door to work, and also ache for the time away when you don't see those kids? How can someone so small make such a big mark? How and why and the questions no one can answer...
5 comments:
This is a post I just found in my edit posts list. I wrote it at work on a particularly challenging day and reading it again made memories come back. I can't begin to express how much I miss that place and those kids...
This post reminds me of your poetry. Do you still write it?
I wish I did. I don't write much at all anymore, which is weird considering it used to be such a huge thing for me. I guess that's kind of a good thing though, because it was always easier to write when I was sad. I must be happier now. :) I forgot that you had read any of that. You're one of very few. Love you Kami!
Thanks for sharing this post with us. I wanted to type more but I have to go get a tissue...I love you Ash.
Wow, what a touching post! You're a great writer.
And you're right. No one should ever have to hear those words: You have cancer. I heard them when I was 17 and again when I was 19. As as crappy as it was for me, the next part of what you said has to be nearly unendurable: That my parents had to hear their child had cancer.
It's been 15 years for me since I finished my last treatment. I'm so grateful for the second chance at life I was given. I hope I'm doing with it what God had in mind.
Thanks for posting this. I'm glad I've found you!
Post a Comment