I think this is a headline that stands out to people (like me) who have stood by a friend and/or family member as they battled cancer. There comes a time when a person's quality of life is so impacted by the treatment that he or she decides not to continue. OR - there is the harsh realization that it is a losing battle with the end in sight.
Still...this is news that is unlike to be a shock to anybody but it is stunning nonetheless. United States Senator John McCain has announced, through his family, that he will be ending treatment for a brain tumor that he has been battling for some time.
The Arizona Senator has been a mainstay in the halls of Congress since 1987. He has served most recently as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago in July 2017, which was discovered after he had surgery to remove a blood clot above his left eye.
McCain's 82nd birthday is less than a week away.
In these times of intense, harsh political rhetoric, it is my hope that people will realize that the proper response to this news is to express our appreciation for a lifetime of heroic service to John McCain. The ideological battles are done.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt