Emma never once talked about my cancer. She made me a bracelet, changed the subject to her cats, and put her hand up whenever anybody picked on Papa. It took me a year to learn her silence was her answer.
Forty-eight hours after my diagnosis, Emma Grace walked over from the craft table and handed me a bracelet without a word. Ivory and burgundy beads, and two words I’ll never forget. It still sits on my headboard.
Twenty-four hours after the diagnosis, I was running on autopilot — work, food, driving, one motion after another. Then I heard one word from behind me: “Hi.” My daughter Kristen had gotten on a plane without telling me. This is what it felt like when my family showed up before I even asked.
When cancer made my daughter angry at God, I learned you can’t hand somebody your peace. You can only stay with them while they find their own.
At 5:23 in the morning, one day after I was told I had cancer, my daughter texted me: “I’m just so angry at God.” I was rolling down I-40 in a semi, crying where no one could see, and I had to decide what she needed to hear. This is what I told her.
I had twenty minutes to find the right way to tell my wife I had cancer. There wasn’t one. Here’s what actually happened in that doorway — and what I’d want you to know if you’re about to have that same conversation.
Driving home from the biopsy, I already knew. The hardest part wasn’t the diagnosis — it was knowing what three words were about to do to the woman I’ve loved since high school. “Baby doll. It’s cancer.” This is the moment everything changed for my whole family, all at once.
The house was loud with grandkids, the Jeep still smelled like coffee, and I was picking out bananas in the produce aisle when my phone rang. Twenty minutes later, nothing was ordinary again.
Waiting for biopsy results can leave your mind fighting a hundred outcomes that haven’t happened. Here’s what helped me put down the fear, focus on what I could control, and live in the day I actually had.
I had heard “Thy will be done” my entire life. Walking toward a cancer biopsy, I finally had to decide whether I actually believed those words.
