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To Die A Good Death

Are you following the blog of Kara Tippetts, the young Colorado wife and mother who is dying of cancer? You want to see amazing grace? Read that blog. From a recent post in which she says when a friend asked her if she was tired of the cancer battle, she responded by sending the above […]

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Are you following the blog of Kara Tippetts, the young Colorado wife and mother who is dying of cancer? You want to see amazing grace? Read that blog. From a recent post in which she says when a friend asked her if she was tired of the cancer battle, she responded by sending the above photo of herself and her children. More:

[L]ooking at these faces, I will continue to take the treatment. I know I’m fading. I know new corners of cancer are taking up residence in my body. I just know. But these faces- these blessed faces make the swallowing of pills a little more bearable.

My kind faced oncologist told me it’s time for my port to go back in soon. I simply wept. He awkwardly patted my back. He made false promises that one day it might come out. I smiled and called him an optimistic liar. He chuckled. I simply told him I would do it- for my four little faces. I would. I told him I knew it would be an awful ending, but I would do my best to end well. The fading would be terrible, but I would find grace in the midst of terrible. It’s always been there- it always will be there.

I’m still swallowing the endless pills and fighting for good moments in bad days. They are there. They are precious. Today I was able to make a meal for a new baby in our church. My mom is here and helping. It feels nice, it feels normal. I’m thankful to help in a small way- when I have been helped in such huge ways. The forming of meatballs feels right. The smells in my house remind me of goodness and grace.

So I will swallow the pills, look piercingly into the faces of my people, and I will keep moving into the next thing.

I would do my best to end well, said the young mother of four, who knows that absent a miracle, she won’t live to see her children grow up. Cancer is a refining fire; the world is seeing what Kara Tippetts is made of, and I tell you, it is an inspiration so profound it almost makes me shake.

You should start following her blog. Her book, The Hardest Peace, which is about the fight, will be out on October 1.

 

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