“It’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln
I recently signed up for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s October walk to raise research funds for the childhood cancers that claim tens of thousands of kids every year. I will walk in honor of Jacky, my son’s dearest friend – and I can say oldest as well because, despite being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at 13, she was fortunate to be treated at one of the country’s top oncology centers, with a special strength in childhood cancers, and today at 21 she is a healthy, happy young lady poised at the beginning of her adult life.
But I attended a presentation yesterday by a mother who lost her 8 year old daughter to cancer last year. Instead of wallowing in grief, she has formed a non-profit that provides spiritual and emotional support to children and their families — something shockingly rare in our state-of-the-art cancer centers. Her description of her daughter’s courage during the terror of chemo, of her losing every strand of hair, of having to look her mother in the eye and ask if she would die, broke my heart into a thousand pieces.
All I could think of was how lucky we were that Jacky survived. Survived to dance at her prom, have her heart broken by her first boyfriend, attend college, and dream of a future. No matter how many more days, months or years she has ahead of her, each is a gift that might not have been made if it weren’t for a cure. What’s that song by Tim McGraw? “Live like you were dying”. I think Lincoln would agree. But I think he would also want us to strive for an end to childhood cancers.
