There are moments in life that leave you different. Not just emotionally deflated but completely changed.
Your viewpoint changes, your heart softens, and suddenly, the things you used to worry about feel so small. One of those moments happened to me in 2023, in a hospital room in Egypt.
That year, I spent the month of May inside Neuro Espitalia, a hospital that became our second home. I was caring for my cousin who was battling cancer.
You can imagine abnormal increase in white blood cells, followed by brain surgery, and then a series of relapses. As a law student by then, those medical terms were new to me and I didn’t know what they meant but I was forced to and it was one of my worst moments ever, because there was nothing good in those results, after finding out.
Nothing was improving and even so, and more sadly, ICU visits became a routine and time, the only thing we had, slowed down. We prayed. We waited. We hoped. Nothing changed. But what I remember most clearly is not the pain or what we went through. I remember his smile. His jokes. In the middle of all that suffering, he smiled.
Every morning, even when he was weak, he would lift his head and say, “We are going to beat this.” His optimism wasn’t just a show for us, it was real, and it was for his two-year-old daughter. He made jokes, he laughed with the nurses, and he somehow gave us more strength than we were ever able to give him. He refused to let cancer steal his joy.
And in that hospital room, I learned something about life. That pain doesn’t always come to break us, sometimes, it comes to show us what strength truly looks like and the pains of just being a human.
My cousin’s story reminded me of someone else, Tanner Martin, a YouTuber who publicly shared his own journey with terminal cancer. Like my cousin, Tanner was told he had very little time left. But instead of drowning in sorrow, he decided to live that time wisely. And he did, though it was very little.
Tanner spent his final months surrounded by those who showed him love. He poured his time into his wife, his newborn daughter, and his faith. He recorded messages for his daughter, videos she would one day watch when she grew up without him.
He even went so far as to buy his own burial plot and casket while he was still alive. He wanted to make sure his family wouldn’t carry that burden. And in one of the most sad and beautiful moments, he made a final wish; he asked his fans to donate to a fund for his little girl’s future.Within hours, thousands of people, many who had never met him, donated.
Strangers from all over the world gave money, prayers, and love. In a world that sometimes feels like it is devoid of love, this outpouring proved that there are still many good people around. There is still humanity.
Tanner’s little girl will grow up without her father. That pain is something no child should ever know. But because of him, she will grow up knowing she was unconditionally loved. He made sure of it not just with his words, but also with his actions. He showed her, and the rest of us, that love could live on, even when the body does not.
What ties these two men together, my cousin and Tanner, is not just the disease they faced. It is the way they faced it. They didn’t fight cancer with fear. They welcomed the moment. They embraced what they had left. And they used it to love more, not less.
They showed us that life is not about how much time we have; it is about what we do with the time we are given. It is about waking up every day and choosing to love, to forgive, to smile in the face of fear, and to give others strength even when you have none left for yourself.
The world often tells us that strength looks like power, wealth, or control. But these men taught me a different truth. Real strength is quiet. It is brave. It is in the way you hold someone’s hand in a hospital bed. It is in a father writing letters to a daughter he will never get to raise. It is in the smile of a man who has every reason to cry but chooses not to.
We live in a world that celebrate achievements and avoids conversations about pain. But pain is part of life. Loss is part of life. And even in the middle of that darkness, we find light. That is the meaning of it. That is the miracle. Not the healing of the body but the healing of the heart.
When I remember my cousin, I remember the laughter, the peace in his voice, and the way he looked at us like he had already won even when his body was losing. He made peace with life. He made peace with loss. And through him, I found peace too.
So if you are reading this and you are going through your own battles, whether it is with sickness, loss, or pain that is hard to bear, know this, you don’t have to be loud to be strong. You don’t have to be perfect to be at peace. And even in the middle of your struggle, you can still smile. You can still matter. You can still live. You can still win. Because in the end, it is not about beating the disease. It is about refusing to let it steal your happiness. And that, to me, is the most courageous thing a person can do. Thanks for reading.