Today, I was thinking about loss and grief.  Some people in my family have either recently struggled with or are battling cancer.  I loathe the word: cancer.  You hear the word so frequently these days, but you don't know how much you can actually despise it until someone you know and love, someone who was so full of strength and life yesterday, is gone before you could even absorb the news. 

We as a family, as a people, face the fact that at any time, any of our friends or family members could come to us with the heart-sinking news that they, too, have fallen victim to cancer.  It's something that I've recently come to accept with less fear than before, because I'm placing it into God's hands.  The Serenity Prayer comes in handy here. 

I was driving this morning, and I (admittedly) texted my mom at a stoplight to see how her appointment went today: "R U at your appt?  Will u find anything out today? Will u call after pls?"  These words, or semi-words reminded me of my Grandpa who passed away this year.  I will always think of him when I see someone WRITE IN ALL CAPS or type out R U... or U2...etc.  That was just him.  His wife (my step-Grandma), Norma, passed away about a month after him due to cancer.  Yes, they were a true testament to true love.  I began thinking of how permanent our grief feels when we are struck with it.  Although I am completely annoyed with the clock most of the time, time is is a beautiful thing.  Time has the power to renew our hearts.  There will always be a tear ready to be shed when I think of the people (and pets!) that have left my side on this earth even five hundred years from now, but IT GETS EASIER with time.  I can hardly remember the lyrics to those songs I set on repeat in my bedroom as a just-lost-the-love-of-my-life-again teenager.  Some of those songs played about a billion times, really.  My parents probably still cringe if they hear them come on the radio.  The point is, we are being carried along the ceaseless waves of time, WITH the Lord by our sides, and some dark, very, very dark moments that feel like they will last forever, won't.  This too shall pass.

So, cancer, I can be angry and afraid of your probable arrival again in my circle of loved ones, but you cannot defeat us.  We will survive grief.  We will survive loss.  We may even survive you.  We are armed with God and time.  There will always be a parachute of people here to catch us when we fall, even when we have lost the loves of our lives.  Someone will always be here to lift us up.