Cancer

When I was in grade school,
my best friend was a girl whose father was fighting cancer.
The fight started out just as most do:
a terrified family, but still one with lots of hope and love,
daughters never imagining that they would not dance with their father on their wedding day

And then it progresses
and the father begins to live on the living room couch
and the daughters begin to cry more frequently
and the mother's stress reaches breaking limit,
but still...maybe, he will beat this.

And then the maybes start getting smaller, feebler,
crossing into the realm of "wishful thinking"
and my friend would take frequent trips to the school bathroom just to break down
and I would let her cry on my shoulder
while she told me that they were already designing his headstone.

But, although I was a witness to much of her suffering,
and I was the first one she called when he passed away peacefully,
and I kept her company at the viewing,
and stared at the corpse of a man who was once the strongest person she knew,
one thought plagued me throughout the entire journey,
one that I wisely never voiced to her:
Isn't it better, though? To at least be prepared for the end? 


And now, after all these years, I have my answer: No, it's not. Not in the slightest.

Cancer takes somebody you love, somebody strong and unwavering,
and tortures them right in front of your eyes.
it is not quick and painless;
it is agonizing test results,
flooding their body with countless treatments that poison them from within.

It goes from having your fists in the air, saying
WE WILL BEAT YOU, CANCER, YOU WILL NOT WIN
Wearing pink head-to-toe with your head held high
A family thinking: this, too, shall pass!

And then it downgrades...
maybe this chemo will work,
maybe this radiation will do it in,
maybe this MRI will show a miracle.
'Maybe, maybe, maybe'

And then your maybes turn into ashes
and you stare at the ashes,
stare more intently than you have ever stared in your life,
and think, what can I build out of this? How can I make this into something whole again?

"At least you got to say goodbye"
"At least they knew how much they were loved"
these things don't matter when you are watching someone you love die.

the event of losing somebody you love,
whether it is long and agonizing,
or as fast as a shooting star in a cloudy sky,
is equally painful, equally unfathomable,
and unforgivably agonizing, no matter the circumstances.

Because even when you're facing the ashes of those ever-lingering maybes,you can't possibly be prepared for them.
Even when they're all around you, covering you in their dust,
you can't imagine that a day will come where the family parties will always be one short
you can't fathom losing someone who has been a constant in your life
since before you took your first breath

And saying goodbye is not a privelege,
because it's such an unthinkable act, such a terrible word,
and no amount of time can ever prepare you for it.