The Greatest Gift This Holiday

For three months I've been emailing a close friend from camp. We have sent one email to each other. In that one email, we have 59 messages. Within those 59 messages, we've been conversing about issues in school, the sports we play and miscellaneous details that go wrong in our lives. She recently told me about her brother, a friend that I've known from camp for over 3 years. He's in the hospital. Today, she emailed me: They don't know exactly what he has, but it's bad enough that cancer was one of the possibilities…. The holiday season is here. Together, we can make help end this disease. It will mean more to the world than any gift.

 Living with cancer is a life changer. This holiday, I'm donating to cancer research. You hear people say that 'money is not the greatest gift in the world', or that 'money can never buy you everything.' No. In this case, it can. It helps buy someone's everything. If a person has been diagnosed with cancer, all they can think about is life. Life is their everything. It's what they fight for.

In 2015, nearly 2 million people are diagnosed with cancer throughout the fifty U.S. states. This number does not even include skin cancers. If you're thinking, oh, well, it's all old people getting cancer, think again. Not everyone survives from cancer. According to ASCO, the second leading cause of death is cancer for kids ages 0-14.

This writing is not demanding you to donate. I'm not forcing you to do everything. What I'm saying, is that by giving time, effort and kindness, you're encouraging and pushing forward research and prevention from the disease. This could mean money, a gift basket, or a card. Don't hold back. By simply giving time to a patient, you are giving them everything they could wish for at that moment. It tells them that there is still hope, they just have to keep fighting for it. It tells them that people care about them. It tells a patient that the world is trying to help. It symbolizes that they are not alone; we're all fighting. The greatest gift this holiday, is giving your kindness and support to cancer patients. Remember that their everything is not their X-box, their favorite pair of shoes, or their grades in school. It's life.

Works Cited
ASCO. "Childhood Cancer - Statistics." Cancer.Net. Cancer Net, 25 June 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. <http://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/childhood-cancer/statistics>.

American Cancer Society. "Cancer Facts and Figures." (n.d.): n. pag. Cancer.org, 2015. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. <http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@editorial/documents/document/acspc-044552.pdf>.