Even After Losing You to Cancer, I Remain A Hopeful Man

Hope.

We had you.

From time to time.

The truth is though, you were more of a dream.

Not a reality.

Of hers. Or mine.

Early on, we felt you so.

A few weeks into our new reality, we felt you go.

‘’We got it all John.”

Cancer. No more.

I thought we were free.

Yeah right.

Cancer. Horror.

I’ll never forget that moment.

The nurse came walking into the room.

Stage four kidney cancer it was not.

The actual diagnosis, so much worse.

Devastation. Doom. And gloom.

You cried and told her you didn’t want to go.

‘’I don’t want to leave my daughter.”

The words, and the vision, devastated my soul.

Doctor after doctor, they knew what was to come.

The cancer would come back.

This time in four spots, not just one.

Even then, you fought with all of your might.

Your strength and courage made you my hero.

Fear always the vision ahead of us.

Yet somehow you smiled through the fright.

Hope was occasional.

Here and there.

We had to search for it.

The reality is if you search long enough, there is some version of hope.

Everywhere.

Miracles happen.

We hoped for one.

Until one day.

When hope was truly done.

I lost hope.

Desperation won.

Then something amazing happened.

At my absolute lowest point.

New hope had come.

I felt it in my heart.

I knew it in my mind.

I’m not saying it was easy.

But I grasped onto the new hope, as I was forced to leave the old hope behind.

You were in a coma.

I spoke to you.

As I cried.

I told you it was OK now.

And that you could go.

In that moment, our love was larger than this world.

It was soul to soul.

I went from wanting to die.

To determined to live.

You made that happen.

You refused to let me give in.

‘’No John, you are not going to give up.”

‘’You will make it through this. I know that you can.”

It’s because of you Michelle, that even in the most hopeless of times, I am somehow a hopeful man.

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Thinkstock photo by BERKO85