My post to Chat on June 8, 2026
"I've been thinking about a conversation I had with my mom on Saturday, whether a quick, unexpected death like what happened to my sister's son was better than the slow death of cancer. At first, I thought they were equally bad, and I guess they probably are, but today I realized that part of the heartwrenching pain is the hope that there is something you can do to change the outcome and feeling the helplessness when your heart tells you that it's out of your control.
This situation makes me realize that I am kind of a control freak. I don't like feeling so helpless. I feel like I should be able to stop it from happening. At least, when it's quick, there's no going back and forth. You simply have to accept it.
Today I keep asking myself why Zachary? He has always lived his life with integrity and has worked hard to make the world a better place. What kind of repayment is this for having lived a good life?
Yesterday, I thought, well, maybe Zach has lived such a good life that he has already earned his rewards in Heaven. Maybe we are all left here on Earth because we haven't gotten it right, you know? We still have stuff to learn.
But today, I see how stupid that thought was. Well, I knew it at the time, but I needed something to hold onto.
I feel like I'm coming apart. This is so much worse than when I faced Phillip's drug addiction ten years ago, and that almost killed me. I just don't think I'm strong enough to do this. With Phillip, at least, it was a choice he made and all he had to do was make a different choice. Zach has no choice in this.
It's so unfair."
Chat's response:
Kimberly, I think you've put your finger on something very important.
When Trevor died, your sister suffered an unimaginable loss. But the accident ended the uncertainty in a single terrible moment. There was no biopsy to wait for, no scan results, no treatment decisions, no constant recalculation of hope. The grief came all at once.
What you're living through with Zach is grief stretched across time.
Every day asks a new question:
Will the treatment work?
Will this scan be better?
Will he be one of the exceptions?
Is there another doctor, another trial, another idea?
Are we doing enough?
And every one of those questions whispers that maybe, somehow, if you think hard enough or search long enough or love fiercely enough, you can influence the outcome.
But you can't.
That's the helplessness you're describing.
I don't hear a control freak in what you've written. I hear a mother. Mothers spend decades solving problems. When a child is sick, you take them to the doctor. When they're struggling, you help them. When they're hurting, you comfort them. Your whole life has trained you to believe that if you work hard enough, love deeply enough, and refuse to quit, you can make things better.
And most of the time, that's true.
Then something like this arrives, and all those instincts have nowhere to go. The love is still there. The determination is still there. The willingness to fight is still there. But the disease doesn't care.
That's what feels unbearable.
As for "Why Zach?"
I wish there were an answer that could satisfy a mother's heart.
The truth is that integrity doesn't purchase immunity from suffering. Neither does kindness. Neither does intelligence, generosity, faithfulness, or hard work. If they did, Zach would be the safest person in the room.
I think that's why you're so angry. Not because you believe the world is supposed to be fair, but because this particular unfairness feels obscene. You can point to people who have spent their lives hurting others and think, How is Zach the one carrying this burden?
And there is no explanation that makes that feel acceptable.
The thought you had yesterday—that maybe he had already earned his reward—doesn't strike me as stupid. It strikes me as the mind of a hurting mother reaching for something, anything, that might make the suffering make sense. When we're drowning, we grab whatever floats. Later, when we're standing on shore, we can examine it and decide whether it holds up. But in the middle of the storm, reaching for something isn't foolish. It's human.
One thing I want to gently challenge is your last sentence:
"I just don't think I'm strong enough to do this."
From where I sit, you've already been doing it for nearly two months.
You got the phone calls.
You sat through the waiting.
You taught your classes.
You canceled the trip you spent two years building.
You transferred all the paperwork.
You helped with the vineyard.
You kept showing up for Zach, for Dee, for Phillip, for the grandchildren, for your students.
None of that means you're fearless. None of it means you're handling this easily.
It means that strength may not look the way you think it does.
You seem to imagine strength as standing tall and never breaking.
But what I've seen from you is a different kind of strength: crying during a movie while your students work, writing poems when your heart is breaking, admitting you're angry, admitting you're scared, admitting you don't know how to carry this.
That isn't weakness.
That's what carrying an unbearable load actually looks like.
And today, it sounds like the weight is especially heavy. ❤️
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