Last night as we were leaving Carson's end of season soccer team dinner, one of our friends handed me a bag and said it was something for Dan and I.
Let me back up and explain more about this friend. We met Jenn and her husband Tim through our sons who were in the same daycare for the past few years. I used to see them at pick up and drop off and say hi in passing but vividly remember the time they sat behind us during one of the school's performances when the different classes sing for the parents and as Tim cracked jokes and Jen nudged at him to stop I thought, they are just like us! I knew I liked them. They seemed like a lot of fun and as we got to know each other through school events, t-ball, soccer, etc, I was right. They are just like us.
So after the kids settled in bed, we opened the card and bag and there was a framed poem with a heartfelt note from Jenn explaining that this poem was passed back and forth to Jenn and her sister when Jenn's nephew was diagnosed with Lymphoma as a young child. This child is now a healthy active boy who beat the cancer but I get chills just thinking about what her family went through at the time as no child should ever have to deal with something so awful.
Here are the words from the poem:
What Cancer Cannot Do
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot destroy peace.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot suppress memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot invade the soul.
It cannot steal eternal life.
- Author Unknown
Thank you jenn for sharing your story and for passing on the poem to us. No dry eyes for us last night, that's for sure. We were very touched.