We live in an incredible day and age
when we can do almost anything-
we can do almost anything,
we can go almost everywhere,
we can say almost everything,
we can enjoy the wonders of the world
that surrounds us, without a care;
however, there are things that we cannot do,
there are places that we cannot go,
there are things that we cannot say;
there are people in this life
whose destiny it is to live
the shortest of lives,
and to be afflicted with a disease
that touches and effects the lives of everyone,
young and old, everywhere-
a life-changing shadow,
which no light shone can yet completely cure,
and that darkness is cancer.

My aunt Mary died of cancer
when I was a teenager,
and unfortunately I did not see
or get a chance to say goodbye
to my auntie before she died.
My Dad’s older sister,
I remember was always someone who was smiling,
happy, thinking about everybody else;
my auntie Mary came with us to Florida
when I was a child,
and even though I was very young
I remember her enjoyment, her smile,
her heart of adventure at being
in an unknown country
and experiencing adventures,
that you would always keep with you,
that are literally once in a life-time.
I remember taking my aunt’s, my uncle’s,
my family members’ faces, voices, and spirit
for granted, and never once thinking
that they would ever die, or be in ill-health.

We all take things and people for granted,
and we all stupidly hold grudges on people
who are as human as we are,
and who know they are,
because they are going through their own
trial of mortality.
Cancer has touched and has been a big part
of the life of every family,
and right now it is still touching my family,
and it is still having a profound effect
on every family, and when I think
of what cancer is, and what it means,
and where the fight to beat it has taken people
and will take people,
I feel small, I feel weak,
I feel like if it were possible
that the life of one person
could change the direction of the tide
in eradicating and subduing cancer forever,
I would choose to willingly sacrifice my life
so that every other life of humanity
may be spared more pain and anguish,
and so that no one else may have to
fight every day to preserve
the memory of their identity.

We can all be a part of finding a truth
that may one day be the key
to understanding and building a future of hope,
devoid of the word, the hurt,
the silent fear, that is cancer;
we can all be there to give all that we can,
in any way that we can;
we can all be there for those who need us
now more than ever;
we can all be the difference;
we can all be a part of the cure for cancer.