Fuck Cancer

Watching someone you love slowly fade while trying to cherish every moment that’s left.

I’ve been loving these quick Substack pieces I’ve been doing because they’re happening in real time. They’re less thought out. Less polished. More like emotional snapshots of what life actually feels like while it’s happening.

Today is no different.

My grandmother’s body is breaking down in real time from fucking cancer.

We went to see her today, and honestly, one of the hardest parts wasn’t even the sadness. It was trying to figure out what to say. How do you sit with someone you love when they barely have the energy to move anymore? When you can physically see how tired they are. How the cancer is slowly overtaking their body piece by piece.

Everything feels heavier now since hearing the news that the chemo and medicine are no longer working.

I think that’s the part people don’t prepare you for. The grieving before the death actually happens.

Losing someone is already hard enough. But watching someone slowly disappear while they’re still alive feels cruel in a completely different way. You’re grieving them while they’re still sitting in front of you. Still breathing. Still smiling sometimes. Still trying.

And somehow that almost hurts more.

You notice everything. The exhaustion in their eyes. Their body becoming weaker and more fragile. The pauses in conversation. The silence. The way the room feels different now.

But even through all of that, she laughed today.

She laughed at me, my cousin, and my brothers joking around. For little moments it felt normal again. Like we weren’t sitting in the shadow of something terrifying. Like cancer didn’t own the room for a second.

And I think that’s what I’m trying to hold onto tonight.

Not just the pain of watching someone fade.

But the small pieces of them that are still here.

The weirdest part is leaving afterward.

You spend hours sitting with someone you love while watching cancer slowly take pieces of them away, and then you leave and just sit with all of it. The silence in the car feels heavier. Your mind keeps replaying how tired they looked. The sound of their voice. The little moments where they smiled or laughed even through all the pain.

And when you finally get home, reality really hits you.

You start thinking about how many normal moments we never realize are sacred until they begin disappearing. Conversations. Hugs. Her laugh. Her being able to move around on her own. Things you unconsciously believe will always be there until life slowly shows you otherwise.

Cancer is evil because it doesn’t just hurt the person who has it. It slowly hurts everybody who loves them too.

If you’ve ever gone through this with someone you love, genuinely tell me — how do you do it? How do you stay present when your heart is already mourning them? How do you sit there knowing there’s nothing you can do except love them while they’re still here?

Because there is no inspirational ending to tie this all together. No life lesson that magically makes this easier.

Somebody I love is dying.

And all I can really do is sit with that truth and try to love her as deeply as possible while she’s still here.