Cancer

Who is there? Come in and sit with me. I welcome you to my home. Why do I welcome you so? You are hated, feared, attacked and fired upon, treated as a foreigner poised to take a land that is not yours. Are you death? “No!” Are you a messenger of death? “No!” Are you a friend, a companion who comes to travel with me? Why have you come to me? Was it something I did? Has my family sent you? Please leave me! I have not asked to be tortured. You will walk with me until the end of my days? I will embrace you as my friend. You will be there when others have left me or when they can no longer walk with me… You are not an angel of death but in disguise an angel of life… You will take my body to the grave, but my spirit to heaven… To you my friend I owe my life… You have never been welcomed. I not only welcome you my friend… I embrace you and the news you bring. With out you life would become tedious and dull. You break up the monotony of repetition. When others have turned away as if I have done something unforgivable, you embrace me little by little. I will not fight you. I will not attempt to poison you! No… I say! Do not take from me this my friend… My friend knows the path I travel. My friend will walk with me until I walk no more. And my friend will lay me down and fold my hands across my chest. Don’t weep for me. I have reached my destination. My friend traveled with me and when I fell… my friend was there. My companion until the end… and he asks nothing of me for I give willingly.