Written by: Mutshidzi Kwinda
Dear Cancer,
You came into my life like a thief in the night. You didn’t just take away my health… You took ME. Piece by piece, year by year, a decade later, you stole things I can never get back. You took my strength and confidence. My body, once capable and familiar, is now weak and foreign. Pain is my constant companion, and medicine that’s supposed to help only makes me feel worse.
You took my peace. The quiet moments of happiness I once knew and took for granted are now gone, replaced by fear, sadness, pain, hopelessness and exhaustion. I don’t remember what it feels like to wake up without dread. I wear a mask outside in public, but inside, I’m barely holding on. You took my future or at least the one I once dreamed of. The person I was is gone, and I don’t know who I am and what I have become now. All I have left is grief for the life I lost and the person I used to be.
Some days, the weight of it all is too much. I look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself-not just because of the scars or the way my body has changed, but because the light inside me feels dimmer. The world moves on, but I am stuck here, mourning what was and what will never be again.
Yet even in this darkness, tiny sparks remain. A memory of laughter. A moment when the pain eases just enough to breathe. They don’t take away the grief, but they remind me that I am still here. And as long as I am, I will honor what I’ve lost by allowing myself to feel it all-the anger, the sorrow, the unfairness. Because my grief is proof that I loved my life before you. And that love?
That’s mine forever.
I am tired. So tired. But even now, I refuse to let you take everything. You may have broken my body, but my heart still beats. And as long as it does, I will keep fighting… not for victory, but for the right to grieve what you stole, and to remember that I was once more than this pain. This is my grief. Heavy, endless, and real. But it is mine, not yours. And that, at least, you cannot take away.
By: Mutshidzi Kwinda
