Too Soon

We have been living in Childhood Cancer World for a long time and have seen many children leave way way to early. We gather around those that have lost children and we try to absorb a tiny part of their pain. We listen, we attend events, we raise money to cure cancer, we write, we call, we drop-by.  Eventually, we come to realize it is a kind of pain that never dissipates.  In the end, we realize no amount of time or visits and listening really works.  We have to be happy with just trying.  

I often wonder about those with adult children.  Children that die before their parents.  Children that have separated from their parents and established independent lives. Those cancer kids that were over 21 or 25 or 30... I think when it is all said and done, no matter the age, they are still someone's child.  So much is lost, so much pain, so much grief.  

When a very young child passes away there is always a listing of the things missed.  

• First school days
• First Bicycle
• First Snowman
• First Communion
• First kisses
• First heartbreak
• Firsts of many things 

When an older child dies chances are she most likely completed her list of firsts. She might have graduated, fallen in love, been married in the perfect dress, found a new home, had a child, fixed that first odd Thanksgiving or recently taken up Yoga. The list of completed "Firsts" does not make the pain any less.  In fact, the longer a person is on this earth, the more lives are touched and the hole they leave behind is even more vast.  A better way to say it might be, the hole has a different shape.  It has arms and crannies and tunnels that a young child's life did not have a chance to create. 

In the end, she is still gone. She leaves a 
large empty space in the universe.

A motherless child. 
A husband with no partner. 
A sister with no one to compare notes about     a shared childhood.
Parents with an empty place at the Sunday dinner table.


While those of us with younger cancer kids mourn the loss of all the potential in a fairly recent life, it's hard to imagine the loss feels when a lovely young woman leaves her sick, damaged and useless body.  She did not want to leave so soon but had no choice. What is sad, is that she did not die of cancer. She died of the side effects of a transplant.  She was four years out and the side effects took her life.  

Every cancer death is an unnecessary and brutal loss.  We never know how the world will be changed in the future.  As Ray Bradbury's story Sound of Thunder set forth, even the death of small butterfly can change the world forever.  

Tricia's was an amazing butterfly.  The world is changed forever.  The world is diminished.