But seriously, when it comes to cancer, there really isn't another word strong enough to display how much I hate cancer with every fiber of my being.
First, there was a video that a blogger friend posted online. A girl whose dad is dying from cancer got the help of her town to set up a "last dance" with her and her dad, since he won't be there to see her get married. White dress and all.
Yeah, I should've known that was going to rip my heart out. I guess I probably did, but what I didn't know is that it would make me cry harder for the ache that losing my dad still leaves than I have in a long, long time. I literally just sat in my room sobbing for ten minutes, trying to catch my breath and not wake up anyone else.
14 years later and I'm still that little girl who just wants her daddy. And it's going to tear me apart on my wedding day when he isn't there, probably because I was always the little girl who dreamed about my wedding day, even before he got sick. I think I had myself fooled into thinking that after 14 years, it wasn't supposed to hurt this much anymore. But it's not the losing him that hurts now.
It's the void that he left. It's the knowing that the only things I know about one of the two people responsible for my creation are things other people tell me. It's all the stuff he's not here for, and the knowing he would be if he'd had any say in the matter. It's the not remembering a single thing from before the morning I found out he was dead.
And then, I read this post from my dear, sweet blog friend Mandy. Her brother is dying of cancer and is leaving behind a little boy who, like me, will live the rest of his life on nothing but other people's memories. And I feel just as angry for Devin as I do for me. Kids shouldn't have to live like this. Parents shouldn't have to bury their 21-year-old, college senior sons. Devoted spouses shouldn't have to lay alone in their bed at night being suffocated by the emptiness.
This is when I get angry with God. Not at Him, just with Him. Because I don't understand how any of this can turn out to be a good thing. Why it's in His plan for this little boy in Colorado to grow up without the dad who adores him. How Mandy and her SIL and their parents having to bury someone they love so deeply can be worth it in the end. I know I don't need to know the answers, because I do trust in who He is, but I want to, and it sucks because I can't. And Mandy can't. We have to cling to Hebrews 11:1 like it's a life raft so the grief and the anger don't suck us in and drown us. Because as maddening as it is, that's all we've got. That's all we're going to have.
Grief sucks and cancer sucks and it's impossible to imagine that it's better for Mandy's brother or my dad or everyone else taken by this stupid disease to be in heaven than be here. Thankfully, our God loves us enough to overlook a few dirty words.
Please pray for Mandy, her brother Shane, his wife Cassandra, sweet little Devin, and their whole family in the days to come.
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