Certain times of the month I feel more sad and dwell on sad topics. As in death. Or surviving others’ deaths. (If you’re a female you’ll understand what I mean most likely.) It fascinates me (and not in a good way), how people can live through so much suffering and still carry on.

Case in point, friends of my parents. My Mom was updating me the other day about the husband’s condition and that he was in palliative care. Cancer, for the third time.

That in itself is fairly rare and sounds like the worst thing a person can go through. Three separate cancer diagnoses in a span of fifteen years and this time, it’s terminal.

Believe it or not, that’s not the worst tragedy their family has faced. The husband and wife were parents to four children. Two girls, then two boys. Only one child (now nearly 60 herself), is left.

They lost the youngest son first to suicide, nearly 25 years ago. Then the older daughter fought a decade-long battle with cancer which, sadly, she succumbed to and after that they lost their older son in a house fire.

How. Do. You. Carry. On.

I would think that losing one child would add sadness, hopelessness and all the other signs of depression to every single day of the rest of your existence. You fall in a black hole and you never climb out. I can’t imagine having it happen over and over again.

Another extremely sad situation that happened to a family I knew well was one where the daughter was diagnosed with cancer around the age of 14. She fought the good fight, treatment after treatment. A couple of years went by, she pretty much lived at the hospital. A couple of times they were allowed to bring her home but had to be very careful to make sure she didn’t get sick while home.

The parents and the daughter were in the city for an appointment at Children’s Hospital where they would be told that there was nothing further to be done for her. They left the teenage son at home with family/friends and he ended up in a snowmobile accident that claimed his life. Within about 9 months the daughter passed away too.

Both kids gone. Their only 2 babies, gone.

How do you justify this? How do you put one foot in front of the other? How do you actually carry on?

It’s mind boggling and obviously, I never want to find out.