the thief

I've heard cancer descirbed many many ways and really I think cancer is a thief.

It sneaks in when you're not looking and waits in your body. Waits silent until it decides to start growing. It grows fast or slow, but it grows. And still it remains silent. It sometimes gives very little signs of it's presence. But it's there. Sometimes it not only remains silent and growing, but it moves too. Spreads out from where it started to new areas of the body. New tissues, new areas, new parts. And again it lays silent, waiting. Again it grows and forms and travels.

Once it's done it's work, it leaves that scar of it's presence. It leaves that place it was or will always be. It leaves not only the physical scars, but the emotional ones too. The silent scars that reach up into your brain and into your soul and change you forever. Good or bad. Even if you get the cancer gone forever, the scars are still there. The reminders of what happened are still there.

And sometimes, many times, it steals you away. It takes your life, one day at a time. One breath at a time. One memory at a time. It makes you into someone that you never thought you'd be. It takes your body piece by piece and your soul chunk by chunk.

Even worse it steals from those around you. It steals their dreams for you. It steals their memory of you if they're young. It steals their future with you from them. It steals you. Your wisdom, your love, your encouragement, your help, your being.

I've known both. The people who have been stolen forever and the people who have been stolen for a little bit and returned. I know someone who's fighting the thief right now and I know one who just lost his battle.

I wish them all peace. I wish the survivors, those lost in battle and those fighting some peace. I wish the victims of the thief, the children, families, friends and others peace.

I dislike the thief named cancer.