May everyone find something to be thankful for, today and every day

Here is something that I wrote to a family who has experienced what a year in the life of a child with cancer does:

After years pass rather uneventfully, it is pretty amazing to see how incredibly life as you know it can be yanked out from underneath you, leaving nothing but a narrow rope for you to stand on. All light bulbs around you explode, leaving you in total darkness, unable to see where or when you are going to land if you fall, or once you reach the other side. You have no safety net, but you must continue walking on that tightrope, in the dark, holding on to everything you love, hoping that somehow everyone will be ok.
A year has gone by. It's hard to know how much of the tightrope you have left to cross, but you have become steadier as you try to figure out where it leads. You still don't know where you are going, but as you have been walking, you have discovered that although you may teeter here and there, you have done just fine without that safety net.

When you see a bald, swollen child struggling to walk, but wanting so badly to do it on his/her own, big eyes staring up at you, swallowing often to keep from being sick, please remember that that child needs your love, not your pity. S/he wants to be seen as a normal child, not a sick one. Cancer does not kill the hopes and dreams or spirit of children. They still want nothing more than to just be kids.

When people say that time helps to ease your pain they lie