You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy?
Life?
Cancer?
Sickness?
What’s the meaning of it all?
My cousin has cancer.
If I told you my cousin was 80 you would say that is terrible, I hope he is ok.
But deep down inside, you would know that he is 80 and he hopefully lived a long full life and cancer is one of those things that old people sometimes get at the end of the journey.
But my cousin isn’t 80.
He is 24.
His name is Bryan.
He is just starting down life’s path. He just opened the door and stepped outside onto the front stoop.
He was just inhaling the morning air and feeling the sunshine on his face when suddenly a dark cloud passed before the sun.
“Hey Bryan, you have STAGE 3 HODGKIN’S LYMPHOMA, a type of cancer that attacks cells in the lymphatic system,” the doctor would say.
That’s a sentence no one should hear.
That’s a punch to the throat that drops you to the floor, breathless, empty, heaving in despair.
It’s not a death sentence if caught early. What it is is a wake up call.
It’s a reason to fight, to win and to live life accordingly.
If you have cancer, you quickly learn not to sweat the small stuff.
When you beat cancer, you know that every day the sun shines on your face, and the road rises to meet you, well that is just a Great Freaking Day!
I don’t know how the kid reacted initially. I wasn’t there when he got the news. I don’t know if he cried out of disbelief or laughed a chortle of why me?
All I know is the kid is resolved and resilient and he’s now undergoing chemo.
His dad tells me his hair has fallen out.
Some of us get upset because the air pressure sensor in our car has come on and we have to stop at the dealership to get it checked.
Boo Freaking Hoo!
This kid has to make appointments to sit in a room while a cocktail sauce of evil drips through his veins.
The drug destroys just about everything.
It’s scorched Earth medicine.
Drop Napalm on the enemy and you will kill him.
But there’s collateral damage.
You also take out trees and villages and cows.
Modern medicine?
It sometimes still feels barbaric.
The 80-year-old with cancer is more understandable to me.
The 24-year-old with cancer makes me question the cosmic order of things
Why?
What’s the purpose?
Why does a good kid, with a bright smile and proclivity for music get cancer.
Bryan has just been admitted to the Berklee College of Music on a bachelor’s program.
The program is renown. They don’t admit just anyone.
This kid has the talent to succeed.
The beautiful music he wants to make, will one day make, will have to take a back seat while he puts all his considerable energy into vanquishing the enemy within.
I cover a lot of tragedy in my job.
I see children get sick and children die and good people splattered across the interstate.
Why? For what reason? Can you tell me? What the hell is the master plan out there in the nebulous vortex?
Then I knock on the door of the sex offender, the thief, the human excrement that lives in the van down by the river.
Why don’t they have cancer? Why don’t they get sick?
Who needs these carcasses of flesh? They just inhale oxygen that we could use while jogging or cutting the yard or simply taking a walk in the park.
Why can’t God just give Bryan a transfusion? Just pump the evil within him into the arm of a child rapist?
Now that makes cosmic sense to me.
But that is not how it works. We are left to guess what the cosmic plan is.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Life is a ceramic studio. It takes a lump of clay and molds it into something over time.
Bryan is being molded in a way he couldn’t have anticipated.
They say what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Because he is strong, and because I have faith, I am certain Bryan is going to live a long and fruitful life.
Cancer at age 24 is a wake up call.
Chemo before you have a quarter century on the planet is a rude awakening that life is hardly fair.
Life is a huxter on a Santa Monica sidewalk shuffling cards and taking your money.
Bryan is 24, but the young man has the wisdom of someone twice his age.
He wrote this on his go fund me account. Its profound and sobering.
“There comes a point in everyone’s life where you are faced with a tough situation ahead of you. Whether negative or positive there is always a learning experience behind it that benefits you in multiple ways. No matter how difficult the journey gets you always keep that mind of yours positive. I have done a lot of thinking since the day this all came up. Things that bothered me are no longer an issue, my outlooks on the world have changed, understanding life and death make sense to me now, and what’s most important to me is in clear sight. Going through treatment has already started to make me a stronger person. I welcome these challenges because I know I will never forget the growth that comes from meeting them. I am eternally thankful for the opportunity to reach out and ask for help. I love you all and wish you all the best on your journeys in life.”
-Bryan Levine
Now the kid is fighting to survive, to pay his overwhelming medical bills, to get better and one day make beautiful music.
He is a lump of clay being forged into something wonderful.
Life’s Crazy™
P.S.
If you want help the young man, I’ve provided Bryan’s Go Fund Me Account Below.
http://www.gofundme.com/bryanscancerfund