The last day of 2010

2010.  You've been a hard, hard year.

There are people in the world suffering under political regimes I cannot grasp, homeless, destitute, in slavery, in the depths of the human condition, starving for things I take for granted like food, shelter, warmth, love, kindness.  I acknowledge that, I know I have a life of advantage and have and will receive a bounty of blessings.

I can recognize that and still call you hard 2010, because this year, this year I was witness to suffering that should not happen, suffering that has set up camp in my heart and refuses to leave, suffering that is not my own.

For too many families 2010 is a year that will be seared not only into their memories, but into their souls.  It is the year their child died from cancer.  I know two of these moms, personally.  They aren't some caring page I follow from afar, they are women I know.  Women I've hugged.  Women whose children's voices I can still remember, whose smiles linger in my memory and refuse to diminish.  I can see them like it was yesterday, because in 2010 I did.  

In 2010 I stood in quiet attendance as their coffins were buried.  It's been 4 months since August, since their battles ended and they found relief from their tremendous physical suffering.  Tomorrow will mark month five for one of those families.  That date is what brings me here.

I sat thinking before chirstmas, that in so many ways I am ready to leave 2010 and it's hardships behind, to move on to a fresh new year.  I am sure many of you have the same feelings, or at the least are excited to start a new year and see what surprises it holds.  Are those two women?  Because I can't shake this one simple thought in my brain.

January 1, 2011 will be the first day of a calendar year they live without their child.

As awful and horrendous as 2010 has been to them, this day December 31, 2010, they can still say, "this year, 2010, I held my child.  I hugged and kissed my child and told my child they were loved beyond measure.  This year 2010, my family was whole.  In 2010 my child was here."  A simple tick of the clock, a ball dropping in a busy city, it takes that away from them.  From here on out they live in years without their child.  Years where their child is memory.  Their child will have been here last year.

I think of them both and wonder if their hearts want to linger here in 2010.  If December 31st could last a few weeks or months until they are ready to face what happens at midnight.  It's not just another day, it's a new beginning and one that is mixed with longing to linger here and hope for healing there.

A part of me wants to stay in 2010, because on December 31, 2010 all 400 of the kids who will be diagnosed with my son's cancer have heard their diagnosis.  In those brief waning hours of new years eve, no more children will be diagnosed with his cancer this year.  I want to stay here in this moment, where membership is temporarily closed to new members.  With 2011 the counter resets and 400 more families will join the ranks of the Wilms Warriors.

In 2011, over 13,000 more children will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States.  In 2011, almost every day of it, 47 children under the age of 15 will be diagnosed with cancer.  Some of those days it will be less than 47, but too many days it will be more.  1,400 of those newly diagnosed children will die within this year.  Countless little warriors who have already been fighting the arduous fight for years already will die this year.  All of those families will find themselves in this place with my friends come December 31, 2011.  Facing the dawn of a new year in which their child will not live.

All of this will pass and my wanting to stay here in 2010 won't stop that from happening.

Tomorrow will be about hope, it has to be, it will be.

But for today, in these final hours of 2010 I want to hold on to the year 2010, because in 2010, Skye and Sam lived.