that's right, I said F*CK

I was at the Experience Music Project in Seattle a few days ago, watching a larger-than-life Freddie Mercury perform "Another One Bites the Dust" on the EMP's huge Skychurch screen. He was commandeering the stage wearing nothing but tighty whities and his guitar, and as open-minded as I was trying to be about the music of my early childhood and the music I was supposed to have worshipped in high school (round the corner was the Nirvana exhibit, which I had spent all of 10 minutes enjoying), my mind glazed over and tuned out. I turned from Queen and scanned my phone for Facebook updates.

"I have breast cancer." This blunt, shocking statement was the first thing that popped up in my newsfeed. I made my way to the bathroom so that I could read the rest of the post, and click on the link to my friend's journal, in which she is chronicling her journey from her diagnosis to her treatment and onward. I don't see this person often (once in awhile before, during or after church, at best) and we rarely get a chance to talk. But I know she is a good person, she is loved by many, she has a beautiful family, and she is only 39.

I sat in the clean, cold EMP bathroom and cried. Throughout my emo-tantrum I raged silently about the cruelty, randomness and pointlessness of cancer, the pain it causes, and how it too often takes people away from the ones who love and need them. I thought about how so many people I know are affected, how the "when it rains it pours" concept should NOT apply to cancer diagnoses, and how I want to get one of those "FUCK CANCER" t-shirts but can't because as Scott constantly and ironically points out, it really isn't very befitting of a teacher to use the F-word. (He says it actually isn't ironic. "I work in a shipyard. People expect me to swear a lot.")

Well, FUCK CANCER. There, I don't need a t-shirt.

I know it isn't a death sentence. People battle and beat all different types of cancer. My Dad is in the process of BEATING mantle-cell lymphoma. Jen has youth, huge strides in medicine, faith, and love on her side and will BEAT breast cancer. The relatives and friends going through cancer, radiation and chemotherapy are all lifted up by their faith and the support of others, and many have been BEATING their cancers for years.

I am just angry that when there are so many other battles in life, there is this one too, for so many people. I'm angry that it's even cosmically allowed for a father to be diagnosed with cancer weeks after a mother is lost. When I was little, when I would whine that something wasn't fair or was mad at my mom and said, "You're not my friend!" she would say, "Life isn't fair," and "I'm not your friend, I'm your mom." And naturally, I'd stomp away in a complete snit. Well, life still isn't fair ... only now I'd give every earthly possession to hear my mom tell me that.