I hate cancer.

I don't mean that in a general way, I mean that specifically, personally, directly. I hate cancer.

You can have your War on Terror, War on Drugs, even the War on Poverty. You can have your Cold War, Good War, War to End All Wars.

You can have them all; I want a War on Cancer.

Just a few days ago the newspapers across the country were full of the 6th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We collectively mourned again. Oprah had a special on the children who lost parents that day, there were ceremonies and speeches and much talk of fallen heroes and great sacrifice. And I understand that - I get it because I know what it is like to lose a parent too soon; to mourn a parent who died in great pain and great suffering simply because an enemy came out of nowhere and decided to kill him.

Cancer murdered my father; I'm still waiting for the country to take notice.

The numbers, when you know them, are staggering. First, consider that 2,819 people died due to the September 11th attacks; 3,776 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq War; 440 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan (where we are still fighting a war too). Now wrap your head around the fact that in the United States alone, 1,500 people die from cancer a day.

1,500 dead Americans every fucking day. And there's no War on Cancer; there's just the disease and the people it hunts and kills and the ones who have to watch it happen.

The ones who get to witness someone they love suffer until the bitter damn end.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Some will have colon cancer, like my father. And just like him, many of them will never know how or why they got the disease. Some will have thyroid cancer like my husband did eight years ago. And just like him, they will never know why they got it either. And some will have melanoma like I did when I was 27 years old. And they will curse all those wonderful days at the beach when they were 5 and 7 and 11; when they were teenagers and thought they would live forever. They will curse waves and surfboards and bikinis. And they will find themselves years later, like I did last month, with their scars on their chest and their stomach, lying in the doctor's office listening yet again to their dermatologist say he is concerned, say that he wants to keep an eye on something that doesn't quite look right. And they will tell him to cut it out, cut it out now, cut it out even though the insurance company won't cover unless it really is for sure cancer. They will insist he cut them open now. And he will, because he knows they can't stand to wait. They will get it cut out and wait for the phone call to tell them if they got this one on time or if cancer has decided to come and have a party in their body yet again.

Because it can do that you know; it can come back whenever it wants and all the diets and herbs and fitness routines in the world won't stop it. Nothing will. The radiation didn't save my father and the chemotherapy didn't save my father and the praying each and every day all of his life didn't save him. Because cancer is a bigger badass then all the medical science in the world. It's bigger than our smartest scientists. It even beats God.

Do you understand that? If it wants to, cancer will win and if you win - if you survive - then you're just lucky, that's all. You're just one of the lucky ones. Like me.

But I don't feel lucky; and I never have.

Today, Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, is announcing a massive effort by the lit blogosphere that will highlight the illustrators involved in the cancer fund raiser, Robert's Snow. I hope that all of you will check out her very detailed message about this project, which involves a series of auctions of original artwork starting in November to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Bloggers will be interviewing the illustrators involved and posting about their artwork starting next month and hopefully we will generate more interest in the auction and thus raise more money for the fight. And then, maybe even in my lifetime, we will kill cancer.

I really hope I'm alive to see that happen because I want it to die; I want it to die in the worst possible way.

[And if you're wondering - for me the cancer is not back; I'm still clean.]