C-A-N-C-E-R.

How is it that one word can hold entire families captive? These two syllables have the ability to create fear, chaos, defeat and imprison multiple people in one breath. I’m not sure there is any other known entity that holds so much power and is capable of so much destruction… yet is able to bring out the best humanity has to offer, push people to see life in a completely different light and learn to love in ways they never thought possible.

I was scrolling through one of my social media feeds a couple of days ago and noticed multiple posts of people asking for prayer for themselves, a friend or a family member, because of sickness. 9 out of 10 of those posts were because there had been a diagnosis of cancer. It seems as if now, more than ever, it’s rampant and there is no commonality in the people “chosen” to have to endure it. One post is a young boy who has Leukemia, another is a college athlete who lost his battle with skin cancer. As I continued to scroll, there were others that began to hit closer to home… a woman I went to elementary school with who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, a friend and mentor whose sister has been battling colon cancer. The list goes on and on.

Cancer isn’t something that is foreign to my family either. All of the women on my mother’s side of the family have battled it in some form or another. My grandmother, after refusing to let this disease take her, finally succumbed to the havoc it had wreaked on her body for years not long ago. It was just this time last year that I watched as my baby sister, the youngest of my siblings, fought for her life after a miscarriage turned into tumors inside her body and doubled the loss and heartache she was experiencing. Today, my mom spends her time split between work and her need to be at home with a deep-rooted desire to spend as many minutes as she can with a sister whose number of breaths seems to be measured. Those are just a few of the many moments we have had to be party to.

I know that when glancing at all the situations, the first things that are noticed is sorrow, empathy, shock, downheartedness, fear …those are the things you usually feel, for the other person or yourself when you hear the dreaded word. Negativity seems to suddenly be the master of the day. I look back at all those posts and all these familiar experiences around me though and find that I don’t see those things. I don’t mean I don’t feel them at all and that darkness doesn’t attempt to take root, but those aren’t the things that are magnified. Instead I see strength, love, bravery, hope. Those aren’t pie in the sky things. I don’t believe for a second that it shows a naiveté, on my part, for giving those things voice. My sister, after being diagnosed, sat at our mother’s kitchen table and told us not to worry, God was in control. Her thoughts were to comfort us, not the other way around. My grandmother, even in her last days, wanted to make sure her children and grandchildren knew they were loved and, more than anything, wanted to insure they (we) would be ok without her. Even now, as my aunt becomes weaker, her spirit flares when I see her and she is quick to want to know how we are doing and what is going on with us. Those are no small feats. It is beautiful, unbound strength. It is with hope the former classmate begins her journey, saying she is ready to formulate a plan, kick her diagnosis in the butt and move on to a healthy life and her happy ending. It is with love that my friend and mentor’s sister reassures her family that no matter what happens, she will be healed…whether in this life or in Heaven.

These people, these warriors that I have the privilege to love and bear witness to remind me that even though cancer is a powerful word and is capable of holding those in its reach hostage, it can only do so if it is given the power to. I’ve been taught by each individual around me that cancer is only as victorious as we allow it to be. That doesn’t mean it won’t or can’t take lives and neither does it mean that the battle won’t be torturous. It does mean, however, that it isn’t always a conqueror. It means isn’t able to defeat on its own, it isn’t able to isolate and imprison, and it can not destroy entire lives on it’s own. Cancer’s power, while able to devastate the body, has no control over the spirit.

These women I’ve mentioned had moments of doubt and fear but they didn’t allow the doubt and fear to overwhelm them and beat them. Instead, even if there wasn’t or isn’t a cure, they have become over-comers and refused cancer the power it so desperately tried to claim. Their battles, their fight, makes me aspire to do better and be better. They, without knowing it, urge me to love more, to give more, to fight more and to live my best life. I may not always succeed (most assuredly most days I fail), but I want to do more and be more. That’s what I mean about bringing out the best in people.

Surely I can’t be the only one.

And there, in that, lies hope.