Every time I hear about someone who has died from cancer, it knocks me down a notch. It makes me sad for the person, for the family, for the friends, for me -- because I know I am not guaranteed survival from cancer and while I mostly live each day as if I am immune to this tragic outcome, the knowledge that people do really die from this disease that I am trying to beat is overwhelmingly sobering. And what shakes me most is the fact that these people who die from cancer must have had the same outlook as me at some point in their journey -- the outlook of promise and hope and continued survival. And then something happens that jolts this hope from their grasp. It could happen to me -- and my family and my friends. And that scares me.

Sometime last year, my husband told me about a woman in one of his graduate classes whose husband was fighting melanoma that had spread to his brain. He was in year number eight of constant treatment -- both traditional and alternative -- and with each day, his hope for survival was fading. His wife and my husband talked at times about his journey -- and they talked about my journey with breast cancer. And after the class ended, both spouses periodically checked on each other. Today, my husband asked this woman in an e-mail about her husband. She replied and shared that he died last October. She wrote that he could not fight any longer -- that the last chemotherapy he tried to endure was too hard on him. He died with dignity. And she is proud of him. And I can't stop crying.

My tears will dry. And sadness will drift from my every thought. And I will return to my usual enthusiastic approach to surviving my own dreaded disease. But in the back of my mind, where I have saved every sad story about cancer and death, my sorrow will linger. And I suppose it should. So I can keep my sights on the possibility that surrounds me -- death -- and so I can continue living with every fiber of my being. Because living is not a guarantee. Ever.