If I Die Young.

From the first time I heard If I Die Young by The Band Perry I felt such strong emotions. I couldn’t quite place why I was so responsive to a song but I began to REALLY listen to the lyrics and try and get a feel for what the song was really saying.  In the first verse it has a line “the sharp knife of a short life.”  Wow, this could not be truer about those who have lost their battle with childhood cancer. That knife cuts deep and those left behind to grieve, will never fully recover.  The whole first verse goes like this:

{Lord, make me a rainbow; I’ll shine down on my mother

 She’ll know I’m safe with you when she stands under my colors

 Life aint always what you think it ought to be, aint even gray but she buries her baby

The sharp knife, of a short life. I’ve had just enough time. }

Survivor’s guilt is something that I think every cancer survivor deals with in their own way.  There are so many unanswered questions when it comes to cancer. Why is probably the most common word used. Most sentences start with this word.

Why did I get cancer?

Why haven’t we found a cure?

Why did I live and someone else with the same cancer die?

Why am I not able to have kids and others are?

Why do all my dreams have to be crushed?

Why didn’t the doctors catch the cancer sooner?

Why can’t my friends and family understand what I’m really going through?

Why do I feel so alone?

Why am I suffering?

WHY DO I HAVE TO DIE?

You get my point. The questions are endless.  Why: An adverb used to ask or talk about the reason, purpose or cause of something.  I think every cancer patient wants to know what caused their cancer or talk about the reason they got cancer. There has to be a purpose for all this suffering. I think WHY and CANCER goes hand in hand.  I wish I had all the answers to the Whys of cancer.  I think about my friend Vanessa often and wonder why she had to die and why I lived. She was the person who got me the best.  We were partners in crime and had more things in common than any other person in my life. We were fighters, struggling day to day just to survive.  She lost her battle all too soon. That sharp knife of a short life will follow me till the day that I die. She was the first friend I had ever lost. Death became real to me after she passed away; she would be the first of 5 that I would outlive. How do you deal with that? What do you say to the grieving mother of your friend you have just lost? I can only imagine the emotions they feel when looking at me.  No 16 year old should feel guilty for simply being alive. BUT I DID.