You died of cancer today.
It knocked you down before we ever even knew it existed.
When we first found out it was living inside of you, and as we waited for the biopsy results, we prayed.
We prayed in our homes and our cars and our temples and your hospital room.
We prayed it would be the good kind of cancer.
As if such a thing existed.
But you can’t pray to change the nature of something that has existed in the shadows for so long.
No amount of prayer will undo the mutation and multiplication of cells that has already happened.
So now we pray for peace.
As if such a thing could be so easily obtained.
And we pray for those you have left behind.
As if they will ever recover from losing you.
We send up prayers to a god who has seemingly forgotten your name, except for the moment he called you back home.