I remember the first time I heard the word cancer, or at least the first time it mattered to me. It was a few days before my 12th birthday, and the only care I had in the world was what flavor of birthday cake I would have that year. I knew my little sister had a doctor’s appointment that day.She had fallen at school and started seeing double, but I wasn’t worried. I figured she just needed glasses, and as cliche as it sounds, I had no idea that this was going to be the day that changed my life forever.
I had only been home from school for a short while that day when I heard my older brother calling me from upstairs. I ran to the top of the staircase excited to see him but knew immediately that something was wrong. He then sat me down and said the words that instigated the drastic transformation of our entire lives. “Andrea has cancer. She had a scan today and they found a brain tumor, but it’s going to be okay.” My brother is three years my senior, so I trusted him when he said that everything was going to be okay. But even my near 12 year old mind had wisdom enough to know that although things were going to be okay, it didn’t mean that they were going to work out the way I wanted them to.
Fast forward about a week and we are told that we have six months at the most left with my little sister, and that she would barely make it past her eighth birthday. My family was beyond devastated, it was like walking through a nightmare, completely surreal. The craziest thing about an experience like that is… the rest of the world goes on. It feels as though everything else should stop, just for a moment, because your world is crashing down. But it doesn’t. You have to go to work. You have to go to school. You still have to move and speak and eat and sleep, even though you hardly have the motivation to continue breathing. It’s what I would describe as true, profound suffering. Where you get right down to the core of human emotion and push its very limits, or so you think… but then comes Chemo.
There’s a lot of things you never want to see in your life, but watching someone you love suffer should be at the top of your list, I promise. As a 12 year old I witnessed the horrors of cancer as it tore through the very foundation of our home. Through my little sister, I experienced cancer first hand. Because that’s something that people don’t always realize, when one person in your home has cancer- everyone has cancer. And so it was with my family. I cried myself to sleep for months during Andrea’s rounds with chemo, and for years I woke up in sweats reliving what I’d seen as a child. You just can’t forget that kind of pain.
You never forget listening to someone you love beg you to make the pain stop. You never forget what it feels like to be completely helpless, or what it feels like to beg God to take this away from her and give it to you. Those kind of moments never leave you, they permeate the very core of your being and make their home within. In those moments there is nothing that can bring you comfort. It’s just sadness and darkness and sickness. But what’s crazy is that even with all that darkness, light seeps through the cracks and overwhelms the darkness. I guess that’s why I wanted to write this, to acknowledge that light that led us through our own personal darkness.
You see, cancer didn’t end up taking my sister’s life. She’s a fighter. She’s 18 now, and although I still feel hatred for all the things cancer took away from us as a family and from her in particular, I’m thankful for what it gave. I can’t speak for everyone but I can speak for me. I’m thankful that almost every year of my life since I turned twelve, some doctor told me this would be my last year with my sister. I’m thankful because every moment that I still have her is special, I cherish every second of being with her. See, just like I will never forget the horrors we lived through, I will never forget the times I felt unconditional love for and from my sister.
I’ll never forget pulling her in a wagon around the neighborhood because she was too sick to walk. I’ll never forget seeing her smile after I sneaked into the hospital cafeteria in the middle of the night to steal a chocolate milk for her. I’ll never forget her laugh as I drew animals on hospital gloves and made up silly songs. I’ll never forget the talks we had while I pushed her wheelchair around the entire floor of the children’s oncology center. I’ll cherish every moment I had lying in bed with her watching movies and laughing until our bellies hurt. I’ll remember the love felt between us as I washed her hair every day she was in the hospital. I’ll never cease to giggle when I think of all the times I sang “Do you wanna build a snowman?” incessantly to her while she was confined to a hospital bed and could not escape. I’ll never forget the feeling I had as I sang church hymns for an entire night in the hospital because it was the only thing that could dull her pain. I’ll never forget the tears of joy we cried every time she completed chemo or radiation. I’ll never forget dancing around in a tutu until I couldn’t breathe, just to make her smile. I’ll never forget sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags or doing each other’s nails and hair. I’ll never forget holding her hand through every difficult Dr.’s visit, emergency room and surgery recovery room. I’ll never forget all the times I’ve rocked her back and forth while stroking her hair and whispering, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
All these memories and more I will hold dear to my heart for the rest of time. These were moments where my joy was full. I held onto these moments in my darkest days, I still hold onto them. See, most siblings will never have to experience cancer, thank goodness, but because of cancer I had these moments. Because of cancer I know what genuine anguish feels like, but I also know pure, unconditional love. So thank you cancer.
Thank you for helping me understand what real love is, and showing me how to express it. Thank you for helping me love my family more than I ever thought possible. Thank you for teaching me humility. Thank you for teaching me how to appreciate the little things, and to find joy within them. Thank you for preparing me to be a better wife. Thank you for teaching me to love without restraint. Thank you for teaching me what really matters in my life are the people that are in it. Thank you for teaching me to cling to my Heavenly Father in my darkest hours. Thank you for provoking my anxiety and depression, they have made me a better, more compassionate person. Thank you for helping me understand the depths of human emotion. Thank you for teaching me about empathy. And most importantly, thank you for not taking my sister from me. I’ve learned much from you cancer, and I thank you. But don’t come back cancer. You see, I’ve learned what I needed to from you, and now I’m stronger than you. Thank you for that.
