Putting Cancer On Trial

If I’m ever at a dinner party and someone says...‘Geesh, how long has it been since Michael Jackson died?”... I’ll be able to answer quickly without hesitation. That’s because he died a few months after my mother, and there’s no way I’ll forget how long that’s been. For two and a half years, the Dr. whom everyone saw as the guilty party in the death of Michael Jackson, has been on trial.
Late in the evening on November 7th, he was found guilty.

Tuesday morning, November 8th, I was at the gym doing cardio on a spin bike while I was watching the news. They showed us over and over and over the reading of the sentence and the Dr. being handcuffed, presumably to be taken somewhere where he’ll spend some time away from society. We saw Michael’s family elated with smiles on their faces saying ‘justice was served’ and other things that eluded to the fact that they were happy. Now, I know, they’d give up any and all of this to have Michael alive and well, but ‘justice was served.’

I was angry...for a moment. I think I pedaled a little faster for a while and thought about how nice it would be to put cancer on trial. I thought about how nice it would be to see Breast Cancer in its best suit sitting at the defendants table...see its face when a guilty verdict was read in the death of Rose Marie Hunt...see its face as it was hauled away in handcuffs to be taken out of society deemed “not worthy to be among us.”

That would be nice.

But obviously, this Law & Order scenario is something that will happen only on paper, for now. In the meantime, the ‘trial’ we have cancer on, is one we all have to participate in. We are all prosecutors. Our genetics and choices among other things certainly influence the outcome of anything that may happen to us...as is the case of Michael Jackson...my mother, myself and the neighbor next door.

Although we know breast cancer is the culprit...the guilty party...the enemy and we know our society would be wonderful without it, this trial will not end in a guilty verdict until we find a cure. My prayer is that it happens in my lifetime....so I can say on camera to the world that ‘justice was served.’