Yesterday, I linked to a piece in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens about his ongoing tribulations with cancer. Today on Boing Boing is a beautiful, heart-wrenching piece by Xeni Jardin on her recent cancer diagnosis,

The trick, these fellow travelers tell me, is to accept the not knowing and find your equilibrium in that new gravity. Calm the mind. Find your balance out on the cold planet, whether or not you know the next step, or the date of the next appointment, or what good or bad news the Technetium-99 isotopes floating around in your blood during the last scan reveal.

You must be at peace with not knowing, they tell me. That is how you get through outer space, and find your way back home.

The thing about this thing, or, at least, this first week of this thing, is how it takes you out there to the cold planet again and again and again, when you aren’t expecting it. Long, undulating waves of fear pull you out to where you are alone and unreachable, even by words sent from the strongest satellite.

The thing that brings you back is love.

As someone who’s admired Xeni for a long time, my thoughts are with her, wishing her the very best recovery.