"Hey everyone, I just wanted to share with everyone something my cousin wrote about his brother who had Leukemia. Any time I don't want to work out, I think of my cousin and how grateful he was when he could jump around again.
Needless to say, the chemo slowed him down a bit. He no longer motored around the house at breakneck speed. More than likely you could find him laying on the couch, or in his bed. Sometimes you could convince him to go outside for a few mintus or go for a car ride, but most of the time he wasn't up for it.
We couldn't figure out what he was thinking sometimes. If he thought that sickness was just a childhood formality or if there was something really wrong. Spinal taps and IV's took the place of T-Ball and Spelling Tests. Cold hospital rooms for home.
His immune system was so low that he couldn't go to school, his classmates were suddenly dangerous. On occasion they would all load the bus and come to the house and stand out in the driveway and wave to him through the glass door. He wanted more than anything to run out there, but the door was always locked. He'd cry when he couldn't go outside, but it's almost like he realized that he couldn't.
He told us that he spoke to angels and sometimes they kept him awake at night. We never thought to doubt him because he described them in vivid detail. "Make the angels go away, I've got to get some sleep." He'd sit and tell me about his life and what he wanted to be when he grew up. Sometimes he'd tell me he wanted to be me when he got older, and the whole time I sat in amazement at his beauty and strength, wishing I could be like him when I was grown.
The steriods he was on to help build his immune system made him gain weight until he was twice as big as he used to be. Weak from chemo and unable to support his weight, he would have trouble walking and sometimes he couldn't walk at all. He wanted to run, he wanted to jump, he wanted to be a kid again but he was physically unable to. But his body began to fight back, the medicine began to take hold and his heart loaded him on its back and carried him.
I got home from school one day and walked in the front door to find my brother standing in the door way, jumping repeatedly. His face was as bright and full of life as it had been in 2 years and his laugh was uncontrollable.
"Chase! What are you doing?"
"Jumping!"
"What?"
"Weston, I can jump!"
It hit me then that it had been so long since he had even been able to walk that jumping was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced. But there was more to it that that. It was so symbolic of everything that he had been through because he found himself at a point where he could either give up, or jump head first into life and fight back and he chose to jump.
My baby brother beat cancer. He beat the hell out of it. And he taught my family and I more about life and about ourselves than we ever imagined we would know. Someone once told me that angels sometimes walk among us to show us how to live and I believe that with every inch of my heart because I have seen it and I have experienced it.
Life begins and it ends in the blink of an eye. What you do with the short period of time in between is up to you and only you. I pray that in every situation that you are faced with, you choose to jump into life. My brother taught me to jump, and now I have jumped, here's to you jumping as well. Maybe what you need is waiting for you at the bottom.
We'll meet you when we land."
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