Category Archives: Prayer

I'm pretty sure this is good news

From what I understand, the doctors didn’t find any cancerous cells in Uncle Brian’s test sample the other day. They’ve decided that rather than doing a biopsy, they’re going to start radiation treatment to shrink the tumor. Then, as my cousin put it, “once it’s small enough the doctors should be able to kill it with a laser thing!”

My heart hurts

I’m struggling with how to write this today, so I’ll just spit it out: My dad’s youngest brother has a brain tumor.

I’m angry. It’s too soon for me to be able to process it without being angry.

Uncle Brian is having his bone marrow tested today. My dad, my grandma, my aunt and another of my uncles are there at the hospital with him. These people have spent so much time in hospital waiting rooms this year.

In the best-case scenario, today’s test will tell us that the growth isn’t cancerous. Please pray for the best-case scenario.

Save Lori's house

Three years ago, Lori Hall Steele and her son watched “Bambi.” The ensuing conversations prompted the freelance writer to pen an essay, which was published in June in the Washington Post. In it, her little boy asks, “Will you look after me when I’m a grown-up?”

On the morning after his fourth birthday, Jack waits for an answer. There’s so much that can happen in this beautiful, crazy, too-mortal planet, and I know truth and its consequences are too much for a child. For my child. For this moment. He will learn the whole truth in time; he will learn that life is as capricious as it is constant. For now I want him to return safely to Neverland.

I tell him I’ll always be here for him, one way or another. Always always always. Just like my mother is here for me. Just like I was there when he was 3. It is an impossible promise, a gamble with his trust. I secretly pray I don’t let him down, not on this.

Lori had this talk with Jack and wrote this essay before she was diagnosed with ALS. Jack is 7 now, and his mom’s in the hospital. She’s on a ventilator and unable to work. She’s a single mom, and the bank is about to foreclose on their house.

Please go to Save Lori’s House to learn more and, if you’re able, to help save Lori and Jack’s home.