"You said that you would die for me. You must live for me, too."

I know you guys have got to be sick already of coming to my site and reading sad things. Reading about cancer, about death, about the sucky stuff that comes after both. I want to write about my mind-blowingly awesome life, because believe me, I have one. But for some reason, it is rare that my heart pulls my body to my laptop to tell you about how great the sunshine felt on any given day... instead, puppet strings grip my hands and land them right here on the keyboard as soon as tears are shed. (And you guys wonder why I don't write as often as you'd like:))

I wonder if I'll ever have the strength of my father or my mother. My father fought cancer for eighteen years... and when I say fought, I mean he had on boxing gloves and a mouthguard and never backed down. All of this, but he wouldn't have had that fight in him if not for the strength of my mother, who constantly reminded him of the great life he had to live, and lives he had to live for. I don't know how parents do it. I sit here completely dumbfounded as to where that strength comes from, because It knows I don't have it.

I know I've got the mouthguard... for I've been hit so many times in my life that I can barely see straight sometimes. I pray, though, that I inherit the boxing gloves. I need the strength to kick the enemy's ass - for real.