This Isn't Your Feel Good Post

I never liked the expression "there but by the grace of God go I." It suggests the those who were victims of some horrible misfortune did not have God watching over them. Likewise, people who say they were "lucky" that the same tragedy didn't strike them would suggest others were "unlucky."

Grace and luck have nothing to do with being alive and healthy. Ask parents of children with cancer. This is where you tune out because no one wants to hear about cancer and certainly not cancer that ravages and often steals our children (myself included). Maybe if we don't think or talk about it, it won't happen to us. Where's that wood to knock on?

We hear a lot about fundraising for breast cancer with its bright pink and talk of "boobs." Men's health has a fun event like Movember where men grow moustaches for the month of November to raise money and awareness. These have been extremely successful charitable causes because as adults who face adult cancers ourselves or with those we love it's politically correct to make "feel your boobs" or "bend over" jokes, if it means people are getting checked.

It's very difficult to apply the same campaigning to childhood cancers. No one, not one person wants to see a child with cancer, let alone think about it or try to turn it into a catchy, quirky fundraiser. Better not to even allow the thought of the possibility of this striking home to enter our minds, or it could become our own horrible reality.

How about this new thinking: prevent childhood cancers by THINKING about them. Better still, find out what you can do to help. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Today, I'm thinking about Darrel and those he left behind when he was only seven, and I'm hatching a plan. Stay tuned.