A Punch to the Gut - My Brother's Cancer

This is going to be pretty raw and rambling. I don't know how it will turn out. I just need to write. Feel free to tune to a happier channel if you'd like. You've been warned.

An hour ago I spoke with my brother. He had just spoken with his doctor. The test results are back. His leukemia is back - for the third time. He's been given a 5% chance to live. There. I got it out.

[long pause... breathe... cry... note to self: don't re-read what you've written... too hard]

If it had been anyone else, the doctor said - anyone but my brother, who watched Lance Armstrong dominate his seventh Tour de France this year, absorbing his fighting mojo - the doctor would have recommended hospice care. Hospice. Shit. Next year he turns forty. Instead, they're going to throw the pharmacy at him - radiation, chemo, the works. One last ditch try to work a medical miracle. That all starts this afternoon.

It's one thing to read about other people going to hospice. It's one thing to have seen my 70+ year-old uncle go to hospice. It's quite another to be facing the strong possibility that my only brother may be going there. Soon. My little brother. Shit.

Christmas, we are told, is highly unlikely. Even Halloween seems a stretch. Hope is still there. I know that docs don't know everything; that miracles happen; that prayer is powerful. And yet. Single digits.

He sounds fine now and that's the kicker. The whole conversation seems so normal - except for its content and its implications - my brain working overtime. The e-mails are already pouring in. In the space of five minutes, over a sandwich, (my daughter reminding me to eat), I made about 200 people just as sad as I am. The most common word people use: Surreal. This cannot be happening.

And yet... my brother is still at the other end of the phone. I'll be going to see him in an hour or two. He's still... him. But this thing is hanging over him - drawing closer, laying claim. Dread. My sister in law, potentially a young widow. A casual friend recently lost his young wife, and even at that distance I wept daily - for a month. My niece starts kindergarten in a few weeks. Attending her school plays, sports events, music lessons, first date, college... none of it, maybe. My parents... that's too hard to touch. Too much there. I can't even think about it... cannot put myself in their shoes. The pain is absolutely blinding.

And yet. Miracles. Daily miracles. God quietly making His presence known. When my brother checked into the hospital yesterday, I noted the passage of the day on Biblegateway, from Romans 2:14-15:

"If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."

And he knows that.

A story. A true one: Last week, my brother met, as he has several times, with the priest of the parish he attends. (My sister-in-law is Catholic. They are raising their daughter Catholic. My brother is, well... a believer... a seeker trusting in Christ. And let's leave it at that. That's good enough.) My brother asked the priest an age-old question: what is this prayer thing? what am I supposed to do? how do I pray? The priest replied: prayer is like catching a butterfly; do not struggle and run after it; be still and it will land on you. Nice metaphor, he thought. Beautiful.

Priest leaves. Ten minutes pass. My brother sits quietly. My sister-in-law comes home with my niece who runs in the door ahead of her. Without saying a word, my niece runs to her toy chest, opens it and pulls out... a stuffed butterfly... and sets it gently in my brother's lap. "Daddy", she says, "I want you to have this because I love you very much."

He was in awe. I was in awe when I heard it, (amidst the giggles of delight that my brother had seen the wonder and power and grace in that little scene.) And really, we all should be in awe.

Those are the loving arms. That is God in action. When we most need it, He shows Himself immediately, unambiguously, and in the most deeply personal way. And with God watching over us with such abounding love, who am I to question why he may need my brother with him for other things - why this searing pain of impending loss is not forging us into creatures better able to glorify Him? I cannot. I will not. I can only go on, trying my best to abide His will.

UPDATE I: A Spiritual 'Thinness'
UPDATE II: Being Present
UPDATE III: Parking 'Karma' - God is a Bostonian
UPDATE IV: A Miracle: Hallelujah!
UPDATE V: Catching Up