From Brian Doyle’s essay “On Not ‘Beating’ Cancer”
“I know a boy with brain cancer. He’s 16 years old. He isn’t battling his cancer. It’s no something to defeat. He is enduring it with the most energy and creativity and patience he can muster. He says the first year he had cancer was awful because of the fear and vomiting and surgery and radiation and chemotherapy and utter exhaustion. But he says that first year was also wonderful, because he learned to savor every moment of his days, and because he met amazing people he would never have met, and because his family and friends rallied behind him with ferocious relentless humor, and because he learned he was a deeper and stronger and more inventive and more patient soul than he had ever imagined.
“He also learned about fear, he says, because he was terrified and remains so, but he learned that he can sometimes channel his fear and turn it into the energy he needs…”