As a little boy, I remember hearing your name, but not quite understanding who you were, what you were capable of doing, and why it is that you do what you do. When I was a child, the big crisis was AIDS, and the news and flurry was around this disease. As I recall, at this point in my life, I didn’t know anyone who had Cancer or anyone who had been impacted by you. Truth be told, my parents likely hid this from my tender little ears, eyes and heart. It was also at this point in my life that I distinctly remember having recurring nightmares as a child where I had lost my mother, and I recall waking up from these dreams in a sweat and terror, checking to see if my mother was alright. Probably not too dissimilar from anyone other child, but let’s continue.
As I grew older, I started to better understand who you were, and it wasn’t until college that I had met someone you impacted. Through a friend of a friend, I met someone battling Leukemia, one of the many different ways you present yourself in this world. At this point, it was if my eyes were opened, and then, during the course of the next several years, I witnessed many friends, family members and others who were impacted by you.
I want to pause for a moment and recognize how you’ve been unbiased in who you target, which across the spectrum of diseases, you are one of the few who doesn’t choose your victims by the color of the person’s skin, race or age. There could be something said for that, but this isn’t about you, it’s about us.
Your impact is for maximum effect, isn’t it? Trying to spread as quickly as possible, and impact everyone in your path. Friends, family members, even acquaintances are impacted by your senseless rampage that you cause. You think you’re clever, right? Hiding quietly in the body for years, until an unsuspecting person is terrorized by your poison. There’s something to be said about someone who has the ability to hide quietly for years and then out of nowhere causes maximum destruction. Again, there’s something to be said, it’s negative though, and because I wanted to keep this more optimistic I’ll skip over bashing you, for now.
Now, can we continue?
In the winter of 2007, I had recently moved to Chicago and started working at a Healthcare Advertising Firm in Chicago. At this point, I had practically called my mother (living in Florida with my father) every single day, but during a two week stretch I had stopped. One night, I called her to check-in, apologized tirelessly for being absent and started to catch-up. It wasn’t until part-way through the discussion that my mother said to me, “I have to tell you something, don’t be worried, but I’ve had a couple of seizures, and they want to do brain surgery. Oh, and it could be a tumor”. Everything I learned over the course of my life at this point was tumor’s are bad, and I knew there was a chance it would not be benign.
Can I just ask you a question? Do you get involved when it’s benign, like lingering in a dark alley waiting for an unsuspecting victim to walk by and then pounce on them? Just curious.
I flew to Florida a week or two later for the brain surgery at Moffitt Cancer Center. I recall sitting in a large waiting room with my family. My mother was so positive going in, that I thought everything was going to be OK, so much so that I was doing work while in the waiting room and conducting conference calls. It was a few hours later when the surgeon came out and all I heard him say was a phrase I hadn’t heard before, Stage IV Glioblastoma. I’m fairly certain he talked to us for several minutes, but I heard nothing else but this phrase. Everyone around me was in tears, however, I didn’t fully understand the ramifications of this phrase and what it meant for my mother. It wasn’t until later that evening, before I went to see my mother after surgery, that I went online to see what this was.
Can we both agree that doing online research for a disease is a bit frightening for everyone? Frightening for you because of the thousands of on-going clinical trials and for us because of the sometimes bleak outlook on some of the ‘less informed’ sites. Anyways, moving on…
At this point in my life (yes, I know I’ve said that multiple times, it helps me), I would say there were four pivot points in my life. A) Birth, B) My near death experience when I was 16, C) open heart surgery, D) this moment. This moment was and has been one of the clearly defined points in my life, and will always continue to be. I remember walking into the recovery room, looking at my mother with wires coming out of every part of her head, and her asking, “Is everything OK?”. My response, “Yeah, it’s going to be OK”.
Why did I say it was going to be OK when the outlook I read about online was poor? Because I had hope, like so many other individuals and families. Hope is what motivates us, it is what helps inspire us, and for my mother hope is what kept her going. Hope, gasoline, batteries for a Tesla all have the same outcome for me… It’s what helps drive us. Without hope, I suppose we’re hopeless, but those of us who have met you, have so much hope. Hope for a positive tomorrow, hope therapies, but more importantly hope for more time.
Over the next 15 months, I watched my mother fight, battle, and kick you around. I like to think of her fighting you, it brings me a little bit of joy every time I think about her, knowing that while you may have taken her down, one thing you never took away from her or our family was our spirit, our hope and our memories. I had met an individual during my life, who had a profound impact on my growth and development, however, more importantly she left me with a phrase I’ve never forgotten, which is ‘at the end of the day, all we have is our memories’.
As I sit here today reflecting on the upcoming 7-year anniversary of my mothers passing, I’m reminded of a few things: A) We never mourned her death, instead we celebrated her life. We recognized her for the marvelous woman she was, her commitment to education and helping others, and her relentless focus on her family. B) It would be easy to feel sorry for ourselves, but instead we celebrate the time we had while she was with us, and relive the memories we developed with this remarkable woman. C) There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t have a thought, a memory or see something that reminds me of her and the impact she had on the world.
So, why am I writing to you nearly 7 years after you took my mother? Why now? What do I want? Do I want money?
I wanted to thank you. I know right, thank you, why on earth would I do that after what I just said above? Again, this is a positive letter, for now. Although you may have taken my mother, it allowed us the time use every second of every day, and we never took a day for granted. I had 15 wonderful months with my mother to share stories, laugh, cry, talk about fighting you (we did that daily, it was rather enjoyable), and more importantly make sure that there was nothing left unsaid, if the unfortunate were to happen. Thank you for the time you gave us.
Also, one more thank you, while I was already working in healthcare, you helped me define who I wanted to be when I grew up. You helped me realize that the greatest thing I could do with my time was to find ways to ensure patients’ have access to life saving therapies, and if I ever move to Oncology, I’ll be coming for you. It’s not just me though, Cancer, you’ve impacted so many other individuals who too have chosen the route of finding cures for diseases, but more importantly ways to stop the spread of your infestation.
And this is where it ends for you… You may believe, I know you do, because you’re arrogant and cocky, that you’re winning the battle against us. You’ve taken way too many children, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, but I wanted to let you know that we’re not going to let you win.
Every single day someone new you target is finding a way to fight you off, push you into the corner and diminish you from their bodies. Every single child you impact, will grow up to be stronger and will have more focus and drive to take you down. Every single day we as a society are finding new ways to target and end your existence.
And every single day, we celebrate the lives of those who you have taken. We remember the positives of their life, the memories we developed, and their impact on our lives whether that was for a short time or long time. But more importantly, at the end of the day, we won’t remember you… You will become a blip in our memory, a fault in our stars, and you will be forgotten.
Oh, one more thing… My mother’s name was Vita, which in Italian means life, and what an amazing life she had.
In closing, I write to you today to wish you the best in a way, because it won’t be too long before we’re able to completely remove you from our memories and our lives. At the end of the day, all we have is our memories, of which you have no place.
Sincerely,
Brent Warner, and the families, friends, relatives, loved ones, acquaintances, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, and anyone else who has had the unfortunately pleasure of meeting you.
P.S. – I’ve already forgotten you.
