{"id":3215,"date":"2024-03-08T13:37:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T18:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=3215"},"modified":"2024-03-08T13:37:40","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T18:37:40","slug":"a-tale-of-two-cancers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/a-tale-of-two-cancers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Cancers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday began with bad news and ended with good, and left me pondering the randomness of life.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning came a message that a high school classmate had lost his battle with cancer. Yesterday evening came a social media post that a friend had beaten her cancer to the point that she needs little further treatment.<\/p>\n

I feel a bit like Scrooge, pondering a Christmas yet to come that mixes great sorrow with great joy. How capricious life can be! Is it any wonder it may seem meaningless at times?<\/p>\n

\"
\n(Image: “Fuck Cancer,” by Myriam von M, on Wikimedia Commons.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

We, and those we love, and those we don’t even know, are afflicted with pains and sufferings and difficulties too numerous to count–TNTC, a phrase doctors applied to the tumors filling my spleen back in the mid-1990s (tumors which thankfully turned out to be benign)–and it is impossible to know who will be next, and when, and where. Yet, we have it within ourselves to make meaning out of even the worst things, if we can find the wisdom and the courage and the strength to do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At this moment, however, I am at a loss. I must say goodbye to one friend, while I wait to see another and greet her with a congratulatory hug. And it all seems so terribly arbitrary.<\/p>\n

So fare thee well, my friends, whatever trials you face. May the meaning you find in them, or the meaning you make out of them, light the world a little more.<\/strong><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday began with bad news and ended with good, and left me pondering the randomness of life. Yesterday morning came a message that a high school classmate had lost his battle with cancer. Yesterday evening came a social media post that a friend had beaten her cancer to the point \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[402,426],"class_list":["post-3215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3216,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3215\/revisions\/3216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}