To My Children
Kids, I don’t know what to say. I’m having a recurrence of a cancer I thought I was done with before the first of you was born. All of you are too young to understand what’s going on. At this point I don’t really know what’s going on either. Until we’ve gotten the biopsy results and figure out exactly how far all of the little roots have gone we can only imagine how good or bad the results will be. I try to tell myself that the best scenario I can imagine is also the most rational scenario, but I can’t deny that some pretty bad outcomes are possible too. In darker moments I imagine the beginning of a struggle against an illness that eventually leaves you fatherless. I’m sorry that this is happening to you.
But let’s imagine for a minute that this does turn bad and daddy is taken away by cancer. I want you to know that dying of an illness isn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone. The human race is afflicted by many illnesses and no one is exempt from the possibility that they’ll die from one of them. That’s part of the price of playing the game. We’re all in that lottery and just like some people will avoid those illnesses, some other people will not. It happens. Dying young is less likely, but it happens too. We were not targeted, we were not victims, and there is no one to blame. It’s like a car crash or a lightening strike or falling down the stairs. We were just unlucky. That doesn’t make it any less painful, but it might make it easier to come to terms with.
There are people in this world who die for reasons that are very hard to come to terms with. Good people die as the victims of crime. Some are betrayed by their friends. Some die of neglect when others who possess the power to help simply turn their backs instead.
Whatever happens to me I will not die of neglect; I will not die of injustice; I will not die because someone thought my life worth too little to save. If I die I will die loved, and labored over, and highly valued. At any age, you can’t ask for better circumstances than that.
I love you. Whatever happens.