Beyond Reason

When my 3-year-old daughter, Cecilia, was diagnosed with childhood leukemia, we were wrecked—shattered, overwhelmed, and drowning in a reality we never saw coming. In those early months, well-meaning friends and family tried to help, tossing out words of comfort, bits of encouragement, or, sometimes, just standing there in awkward silence as they struggled to wrap their heads around the “C” word. Everyone, including us, wanted to know why this happened.

Sound familiar?

For me, the most common and irritating refrain was: “It’s okay…everything happens for a reason,” or worse, “God has a plan.” And I get it—people say that because they don’t know what else to say. They grasp for a reason, trying to rationalize this irrational thing. But what’s the end game when we ask ourselves ‘Why me!?’ or ‘Why my child?’

As a cancer parent, when I heard either of those phrases, “Everything happens for a reason” or “God has a plan,” I went blank on the outside. On the inside? I was fuming. A reason? For cancer? And worse, you’re comforting me by saying that God gave my child a disease that might kill her? Or to my dad, whom we lost not long after?

Absolutely not.

For parents in the trenches of childhood cancer treatment (or any caregiver or patient), hearing “everything happens for a reason” feels trite and dismissive, as if some Universal Plan can neatly sum up our journey and suffering. But there is no comfort in those words. No one deserves cancer, no parent deserves to watch their child suffer, and I could never accept a divine reason behind it. Or frankly, any reason.

Shit Happens

It’s human nature to try to assign a reason when shit hits the fan. What cancer has taught me is that life just happens. You are not luckier if you don’t get cancer or targeted if you do. Things happen to all of us. I’ve learned that the reason cancer happens to a child, family member, or friend isn’t important. What we do in these moments – our reaction to them – is important. Shifting from “Why me?” to something more constructive is key to making it through this journey intact.

In one of our darker moments, I found a way to shift that ‘why me’ perspective. I remember sitting in our pastor’s office with my husband, overwhelmed with grief and despair, spiraling as I looked over my shoulder, wondering when the next bad thing would happen. We had just lost one of Cecilia’s little buddies to a relapse, and another friend’s child had died. I poured my heart out to our pastor, asking why this was happening to our friend’s kids and why it wasn’t happening to us! I was desperate for comfort, reassurance, and a reason why a relapse wouldn’t happen to us, to control the narrative running wild in my head.

After compassionately listening to our guilt and worry about Cecilia’s future, Pastor Sue said, “Have you ever considered that she’s the hope?” Mind blown. I had been so caught up with worry that I had never considered this possibility.

“Maybe she’s the hope” became a cornerstone for managing my mind going forward and being grateful for what was happening. She was okay. More than okay. She was in Maintenance and rocking it. We needed to find a way to make that newfound hope sustainable.

Finding Our “Positude”

One day, while preparing Cecilia for another round of injections and reminding her that if she was polite to the doctors and nurses and had a good attitude at the clinic, a popsicle awaited her at home. She listened hard, as four-year-olds do, and said, “You mean you want me to have a Positude!” Cecilia coined this term—a blend of “positive attitude”—with a spark of joy in her voice. Positude became our mantra. Our rallying cry! It was empowering for Cecilia and a focal point for us as her parents, something for our family to strive for as we pushed through the fire. Positude, amidst the chaos and the fear, gently shifted our focus toward finding hope—every day.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” Epictetus

Our cancer journey taught me that there is no reason terrible things happen – they just do, and sometimes, they happen to us. With time, my strategy was to stop asking ‘why’ and take action by helping newly diagnosed parents, just like I had been helped along the way by other warrior parents. I began taking notes over twenty-five years ago during Cecilia’s treatment when I realized there was no guidebook to help me. Yes, there was a protocol for the medicine that would hopefully lead to her survival, but there wasn’t significant information for everything else, including what I could do to contribute to her cure while still being a loving, nurturing parent.

– No book with suggestions and advice on how to keep my family intact during this crisis.
– No toolbox for learning how to ask for help from my loving friends and family who were at a loss for what to do.
– No handbook for how to talk to our medical team and become a collaborator.
– No resource about how to manage the fear and anxiety surrounding a child’s life-threatening illness.

What did I want? I wanted help. I wanted one book with all that information and more, from somebody who’d been there, done that, and had lots of expert advice to share.

It didn’t exist. So, twenty-five years later, I made it happen. The Cancer Parent’s Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn’t Have Time to Tell You was released in February – World Cancer Awareness Month!

It took time and perspective to be ready to go back to those cancer years, and it was an incredible joy and privilege to write in collaboration with our child’s oncologist, nurse practitioner, and other professionals who were part of our child’s healing journey. Together, we created the most in-depth and practical guide for childhood cancer available, taking parents from day one through survivorship.

Was That the Reason?

Is The Cancer Parent’s Handbook an incredible outcome from a tragic situation? Yes. Did Cecilia’s cancer happen so I could write this book for others? Absolutely not. And as much as I’m invested in educating and empowering parents with The Cancer Parent’s Handbook, I would trade it in a second if I could erase the trauma of cancer for my child – for all children.

Everything does not “happen for a reason.”

Cancer doesn’t happen for a reason, but we can create meaning from our cancer experience by focusing with intention on how we respond to the situation. And maybe that’s what matters most. For us, with Positude as our compass and hope shining through Cecilia’s eyes, we were able to find light and love in the hardest of times and move forward one day at a time. Cecilia is a survivor, and we are privileged to look back at cancer as a chapter in our lives and not the defining moment.

Cecilia is a newlywed, personally and professionally thriving. The Cancer Parent’s Handbook is about to be born. Life is good.

How we responded to our cancer diagnosis made all the difference in how we were able to move through it and into our bright and bold future.

Positude, baby. Let’s do this.

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The Cancer Parent’s Handbook: What Your Oncologist Doesn’t Have Time To Tell You is available at all major bookstores and on Amazon. https://books2read.com/CancerParent

Follow Laura on Instagram and Facebook @cancerparentshandbook or check out her website: https://cancerparentshandbook.com/ for caregiver, grandparent, friends, and family tips for the cancer journey.