Dear Editor:

 

The article “Disease Devastating” caught my eye, as did the bold first word: CANCER.

First of all, as with anything else so serious, cancer should not be viewed as something that doesn’t receive a second glance. Your life changes; you never view livelihood the same again. Cancer shows you the strong and weak sides of people that you never knew they had.

Treatable? Perhaps — but those who survive likely suffer more from the treatment than the disease itself.

What bothered me most in this article was the “club” you created that you said was to help you cope.

How could anyone sit around, just waiting for someone they hold so dear to die? Time is a commodity that we should spend wisely, living to LIVE — not waiting to die. 

Perhaps the ultimate destination is death, but isn’t it the journey that matters anyway? 

The time at the end of one’s life is when that person needs you most — but enjoy them before it is the last minute- when the pressure is on.

Do it because you love them — not because they’re dying. 

Everyone’s dying, if you want to look at it that way, some are just closer to the finish line than others. 

I just don’t think losing someone close to you should be approached in such a way that you are just waiting for a phone call.

I haven’t spoken to my best friend for almost a year now. That is because she, my mother, died last December from cancer.

I try my best to live my life without regrets, but I will always wish I made more time for her. 

 I nearly daily need to ask her something about life, because she was so much wiser than I. 

However, I am not the same person I would have been had the cancer never happened. 

She was diagnosed when I was in 7th grade, and over the eight and a half years she battled it, I watched a husband keep his vow to love her in sickness and in health and a mom keep her vow to live to see her daughter finish high school. 

Alive or not, I am who I am because she was who she was and did what she did.

So yes, I think cancer is devastating.  Yes, someone with cancer could die any day.

But no, I don’t think you should wait on them to die, because you’ll have plenty of time for that after they’re gone. 

Be with them, love them, learn from them, and LIVE with them while they’re ALIVE; because that’s what will always matter most.

 

Lynn Ringle

’06 Graduate of Tech,

Master's Student

Dear Editor,

I want to commend you for doing a great job with the opinions page in last week's paper.

I graduated from Texas Tech in 2005 with a journalism degree and worked four years on staff at The University Daily (now The Daily Toreador), and always like to see young, aspiring journalists get their feet wet at their college papers.

I know I learned exponentially more in the newsroom than I did in the classroom.

As I read Valerie Metrejean's column, it reminded me of an instance where I thought first with my journalistic instinct, rather than with my heart,  after missing the bombings in London by 15 minutes.

Then, I read Erin Bass' column on the path we choose and the growth she has made and realized by changing her path.

Then, I read April Reynolds' and your columns in which you both discussed difficult topics in your personal life.

It was a great page with four well-written and insightful columns.

It takes a strong person to say such things in a public forum like a newspaper.

I believe that is why many people fail or quit journalism because they are not strong enough to write such strong words.

Thank you for doing a good job this week.

David Wiechmann

Texas Tech ’05