To the diseases that have taken too many loved ones,

You are incurable and helpless.

I get it. Not everything in this world can be fixed. Not all diseases can have a cure. When you take a loved one away, you take more than expected. You take their ability to have hope. You make their families feel so helpless and useless. Nothing could ever make your victims feel hopeful. They will never feel that exciting feeling we get when we think about our future. They know their future no longer exists.

You are selfish.

Selfish. Yes, I said it. You took my mother’s memory, her speech, her mobility, her brain, you took it all. The worst part? You didn’t ask if you could take her, you didn’t make sure her family was OK with it. You took her without permission. You weren’t thinking about taking away her opportunity, or chance of having a normal love life. You weren’t thinking about her children, or all the goals she had planned for herself when she was young. You weren’t thinking about the emotional distress you put on her when she found out she was ill with you. You weren’t thinking about any of it. You were only thinking about yourself. And for that, you are selfish.

You hurt me the most.

The pain that she went through was unbearable, I’m sure. But having to watch someone you love slowly deteriorate into just a disease? THAT is unbearable. All I have are fond memories of my mother and I enjoying life before you came into the picture. Once you were in the picture you wouldn’t get out. You were there for good. No matter how hard I tried to make use of those last days, they weren’t enough. It was me that you hurt the most.

I won’t forget about you.

I am faced with the thought of you every waking day. I can’t put you on the back burner. I can’t save you for a rainy day. You are uncontrollable in my mind, like an unwanted presence that won’t leave me alone. Whenever you feel like joining my thoughts, I have no choice but to think about you. I will never forget you.

You forced me to grow up.

A child, a teenager, a young adult. It didn’t matter how old I was because you forced me to grow up without a second thought. You weren’t thinking about taking away a child’s innocence and ignorance of death. You weren’t thinking about forcing a teenager to go through an emotional roller coaster on top of puberty and hormones. You weren’t thinking about a young adult starting their future just to be smacked in the face by you.

I thank you.

There are many things that you’ve done that I can never forgive or forget. There are many things I will never be able to get over. But I thank you for making me stronger. I thank you for giving me one of the hardest battles of my life at an early age, and forcing me to grow from the experiences. I thank you for helping me realize that nothing in the world is promised, and it could all be gone in an instant. I thank you for making me so appreciative of my loved ones. And most importantly, I thank you for making me into the person I am today.