My 12 year old god-daughter, Ariel, was diagnosed with cancer over 3 years ago. No run of the mill cancer for her, she got a very rare, very deadly form called rhabdo-myosarcoma. After an 11 month course of treatment, she was given the pronouncement “no evidence of disease”. Cancer families know that to say “cure” or “remission” is to tempt fate. NED is the moniker that is most meaningful in the initial post-treatment years.

Ari is precocious and smart, and a huge Harry Potter fan. She dubbed her cancer Bellatrix and fought with her family by her side and beat the crap out of cancer…until today. It appears Bellatrix wants a rematch. I am stunned. We are all stunned. Her mother and I have been causing trouble together for almost 20 years. We are family and my aching heart does not know what to do.

I find myself thinking about God and faith today. I suppose there is nowhere else to turn when the unthinkable becomes manifest. I am vacillating between two wildly different notions of the divine. The first defies anyone who believes in a personal, interested God – a God who gets involved in the mundane of our lives. How could such a God do this terrible thing to my Ariel…AGAIN! The other is a benevolent and merciful force of the universe – a God who is manifest in life itself. A God that I thank for my daughters as I kiss them and snuggle them as I put them to bed. But even this God makes me want to shake my fist at the sky and rage.

The thing about cancer, at least the thing that is so present for me right now, is how helpless we are against it. How little we can DO to make it better, to help those we love with this horrible disease, and how little we can do for their families and loved ones. Our mutual friends are asking me what they can do…and the only think I can say in this moment is: pray.