Heavy questions for a Sunday morning.

What would you do if you found out that someone you had just started following on Twitter has cancer? Would you keep following them as if nothing is wrong? Would you be afraid of starting a friendship up knowing that it could end up breaking your heart? This is something I have recently found myself faced with. I know the right answer is to go in with both feet and cultivate a friendship. Is it the honest answer though? I would like to think that it was for me, and that I would not give it a second thought. I tend to think of the people I follow and interact with on Twitter as friends. No I am not going to go the Manti Te’o route, but I would definitely be upset is something happened to one of them. So there lies the dilemma. I have lost a lot of real life close people to cancer and every time it breaks my heart. Would I rather not have know them and not had to go through watching them die? No. They were my family. We had awesome times together, which made their passing hurt even more. I want to try and put myself into the person with cancer’s shoes. Would I want people treating me differently because I have this disease? Would I not want to have a friend when I needed them most because I have this disease? The answer to both questions is absolutely not. People with cancer have got enough things going on with chemo, transfusions, radiation, and doctors visits. How could I abandon someone during this time because it is inconvenient, or that I don’t want to feel bad? Imagine how they are feeling.

With people that are sick I see a lot of people pulling back from them because of these feelings. There are also issues of not really knowing what to say to the person. Do you avoid the elephant in the room? Do you talk about it? Maybe the person that is sick is tired of talking about it. I think what the sick person most wants is to be treated normally, to have a normal life, in spite of everything they are going through. I know it is hard when you see the physical toll that they disease takes on them. I remember going to visit my aunt before she passed away from Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. We talked about what was on TV, what was happening with me, anything but her failing health. I am glad I took that time to go see her, as much as it broke my heart to see her like that. She was the first person that I lost as an adult, and when I could actually process the feelings. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

So I keep coming back to the same question. Why would I want to put myself through that kind of hurt again? The answer: it is not about me. It is about being a better person. It is about helping out any way I can. It is by trying to give a sick person friendship. I am not saying I am perfect by any stretch, but I can listen, I can make inappropriate jokes with the best of them. Love and prayers go out to the people fighting this horrible disease, you are the bravest people I know. Keep up the good fight, and never give up.