I Would Say “Fuck Cancer,” But I Don’t Think It Deserves Something That Enjoyable

Cancer has touched the lives of too many people in my life. You could say it’s the creeper neighbor of the medical world, and it needs to stay the hell away from the people I love.

A week ago, we found out that Austin’s Uncle Ron has a brain tumor. He’d been having headaches since Christmas but more recently started unexpectedly collapsing. His condition has deteriorated quickly, to the point that he just entered hospice.

Ron is 42 years old – exactly ten years older, to the day, than Austin. He’s a quiet man, a musician, a tech guy, and scary smart. He helped foster Austin’s love of gaming and science fiction. He’s got a wicked, dry sense of humor and large green eyes like marble shooters. I’ve only met him a couple of times, but he’s our kind of people.

And he is too young to die.

But then again, so was my Grandma H, who beat breast cancer only to have it go metastatic later on, when she was 62. So was my high school doppleganger, a 31-year-old mother-of-two who finally lost her battle with (shocker) metastatic breast cancer last year. People had a hard time telling us apart when we used to run track. Her daughter goes to the same preschool as mine, and they both have our dark hair.

Grandpa K’s lung cancer came on after years of chain smoking. He’s still as lovingly gruff and curmudgeonly as ever, and I’m not ready to lose him.

I could keep adding names here, of people I know, of friends of friends, but I won’t because you get the point.

Don’t miss a moment of your life. Don’t pass up an opportunity to show people you love them. Don’t let the refuse of this world – the negativity, the anxiety, the maddening frenzy – block out everything that is good, and beautiful, and honorable.

Cancer, however, can go live a long, solitary, unfulfilled existence far, far away from my friends and family, and you and yours.