When Shitty Things Happen to Good People

I remember when I was a kid one of my best friends in my neighborhood lost his father. He died of heart issues. I was little, maybe 2nd grade when it happened. I remember going to the funeral. I remember watching Daniel play in the park outside the church for a few minutes. I remember sitting down on a bench and thinking about how weird it was that Dave wasn't going to be at their house any more. I understood the finality of it, but not the every day consequences. Like when I ran down the stairs in 6th grade and Dan was over having my father show him how to tie a tie. I went into the kitchen and asked Mom what was happening. She had to explain that Dan was going to a school dance, and he needed someone to show him. I guess out of all the things moms do, they really don't ever have to tie a tie. He needed a dad.

I remember being in high school when two of my friends lost their parents. One due to cancer and the other to a drunken driver. I remember both of those funerals. Again, I understood the finality but not the individual consequences. 

I remember my favorite family member being diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought and beat it, but the idea of it coming back scares her a lot.

I remember visiting my sister-in-law's father as he fought lung cancer. My grandmother fighting alzheimer's. The hospital trips... and sometimes the funerals.

And for the most part, most of the people I've known who have gotten sick or passed away have been older than I am. They've been in their forties or well beyond, and I've been dreading what's coming. Not my own mortality, really, but the mortality of those that I care about. That's the way it happens right? First it's old friends, acquaintances. Then it's close relatives of your best friends, then it's one of your best friends or your parents.

In the last three months, three people who were very key in my younger life have been diagnosed with cancer. One, my favorite high school teacher, is fighting it for the second time. This time she's in her sixties. She wrote me a note to tell me. And I thought I'd think over how to respond, but nothing comes to mind. I hate platitudes. When you're not there fighting the good fight with them, words are completely empty. But when that person isn't in your life every day -- when you're not part of their core, you feel even more stupid and useless. They fight for their lives and you wait and hope. 

The second friend gave me my first public relations internship. He's fighting testicular cancer at 40. He has kids not too much older than mine, and he really is the most fun Motley Crue fan you'll ever meet. 

The last friend I just found out about. We worked together in D.C. She is an awesome woman, 32. Ovarian cancer. She's the girl who put me in her car on Sept. 11th as the world fell down around us and drove me to her family's house because I had no way to get home. It took us 4 hours to drive 5 miles through Arlington that day. I'm reading her blog. And I see the comments are empty. And she's pouring her heart into it. 

But I can't find the right words. Words that don't make me feel like a complete dolt. Words that will convey how badly I hope they all kick cancer's ass. Three quality people that I'm privileged to know. Three amazing people... each with their own illness, which has nothing at all to do with me. Except that I think of them fondly, more often than they probably realize, with or without cancer in their lives.