Dear Cancer, I Hate You

Dear Cancer, I hate you. You suck. You’re terrible. You are the true definition of a heart breaker. You single handedly ruined my entire life in the matter of 10 short months. You took away my best friend, the only person in this world who will ever love me unconditionally, my mother — and you took her in the most horrible way possible. You stopped her heart from beating at the young age of 48. You crushed my future and tore my family apart. You broke all of our hearts, so many of us. You stole my mother’s dreams of seeing her baby girls get married, or becoming a grandmother, or spending the rest of her life with the love of her life, my father. You forced me to witness things no person should ever have to witness and you’ve forced my mother to endure pain that goes beyond the physical aspects. Not only have you taken away my mother but you’ve taken away so many other important people. The same thing that drives me to live after this loss is the same reason I hate you, cancer.

But cancer, you did not win the day my mother gained her angel wings. You did not beat her. She beat you, as she left this world with her love, her hope, her strength, her bravery, and her dignity, surrounded by the people who she loved the most. You may have destroyed a lot but you have in turn taught me lessons I never thought I would learn by age 25. You showed me just how short and precious life truly is. You showed me that everyday truly is a gift and that I should never take anything or anybody for granted. You have forced me to recognize a strength with in myself that I never knew I had.

Cancer, although I hate you with all of my heart, you have brought out the woman in me that my mother always hoped I would be. I will never forgive you for taking away the best person I’ll ever know and I will never let you take away what made her that woman. You may have taken her life but you will never, ever take away the way she lived it and the love she shared. And that is why you did not win.