I just spent a glorious day with my family, playing on the beach and watching fireworks with my kids for the first time. (They have been too scared up to this point.) So, I should be writing about how wonderful my life is-which it is. Instead, I want to write about how much the bad hands that life deals just plain suck sometimes.
I just read a friend’s blog about her brother having cancer. I could write an entire book about how much cancer sucks, but I don’t want to give the damn disease that much energy. What I am wondering right now though, is why bad stuff seems to happen to good people-continuously.
This friend, and her brother, are the very DEFINITION of good people. They are upbeat and sunny people. They are kind people. Their lives haven’t always been easy, but they both view themselves as blessed and fortunate. They never complain. They never ask why me (at least out loud). They are loyal and funny and generally wonderful to be around.
So, why do they have crappy stuff happen to them.
I have been told, that you are only given as much as you can handle. I get that on an intellectual level and usually I accept it. But today I think it’s terribly unfair. If you have the chops to handle bad stuff, don’t you deserve a break now and then? Freedom from crap if you will? If you are good-don’t you deserve good?
I know, that he will be fine. In the end, this will be a blip on their radar screen. I also know that there are millions of people in the world with far bigger problems than treatable cancer and they don’t deserve it either. But right now I am focusing on relative problems and this one ranks pretty high. The man has a one year old, and a wife who just lost her sister. Don’t they as a family get a little time to hang out at the beach and watch fireworks with their kid before they have another disease to battle?
At it’s core this is just a rant. I know there are no answers. I know that sometimes life is just not fair and there is no rhyme or reason to that. But I also know that neither my friend, nor her brother will ever ask, “why me”. So I am doing it for them.
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I just read a friend’s blog about her brother having cancer. I could write an entire book about how much cancer sucks, but I don’t want to give the damn disease that much energy. What I am wondering right now though, is why bad stuff seems to happen to good people-continuously.
This friend, and her brother, are the very DEFINITION of good people. They are upbeat and sunny people. They are kind people. Their lives haven’t always been easy, but they both view themselves as blessed and fortunate. They never complain. They never ask why me (at least out loud). They are loyal and funny and generally wonderful to be around.
So, why do they have crappy stuff happen to them.
I have been told, that you are only given as much as you can handle. I get that on an intellectual level and usually I accept it. But today I think it’s terribly unfair. If you have the chops to handle bad stuff, don’t you deserve a break now and then? Freedom from crap if you will? If you are good-don’t you deserve good?
I know, that he will be fine. In the end, this will be a blip on their radar screen. I also know that there are millions of people in the world with far bigger problems than treatable cancer and they don’t deserve it either. But right now I am focusing on relative problems and this one ranks pretty high. The man has a one year old, and a wife who just lost her sister. Don’t they as a family get a little time to hang out at the beach and watch fireworks with their kid before they have another disease to battle?
At it’s core this is just a rant. I know there are no answers. I know that sometimes life is just not fair and there is no rhyme or reason to that. But I also know that neither my friend, nor her brother will ever ask, “why me”. So I am doing it for them.
Well put. Stupid cancer, indeed. Rock on!
Matthew Zachary
13-Year Young Adult Survivor
Founder/CEO
I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation