C is For Courage

I was diagnosed with rectal cancer, and the world kept going.

The sun didn’t pause. The birds still chirped. The laundry still smelled like fabric softener I can’t afford anymore. It was vulgar, almost, how ordinary things remained. As if my body hadn’t just turned traitor. As if I wasn’t now living inside a slow-moving funeral I hadn’t planned.

Courage, they tell me. “You’re so brave.”
They mean it kindly, I think.
But what they don’t know—what they can’t possibly know—is that I have done this before.

When my mother took her life, I learned that courage isn’t loud.
It doesn’t march or speak in slogans.
Courage is a child's hand dialing 9-1-1 through tears.
Courage is sitting in a quiet house that smells like your mother’s lotion and trying not to scream.
Courage is pretending you know how to live when your anchor just cut the line.

I never asked for courage. God gave it to me like a bad inheritance.
Like brittle bones or a family secret.

But here we are again.
Different death. Same muscle memory.

But here’s the thing:
God and I still speak.
Every day, actually.

I don’t scream. I don’t beg. That part’s over.
Now I just keep the line open, like you do when someone you love has let you down so profoundly, you no longer expect them to apologize. But you still answer, out of muscle memory or misplaced hope.

I know who I’m dealing with.
This is not the God of Sunday school.
This is the God who watched my mother kill herself and stayed quiet.
This is the God who let me walk into that room and find her.
This is the God who made cancer cells divide like gossip, fast and careless.

And still, I speak.
Not because I’m devout.
Because I don’t know what happens if I stop.

Maybe that’s courage.
Or maybe it’s just habit.
Either way, we’re still in it—me and God.

No reconciliation.
No forgiveness.
Just continued contact.

Like two people who shared something catastrophic and now can’t quite quit each other.

People love the comeback story.
They want the triumphant arc. Bald head, brave smile, remission party.
They want to hear about mindset and gratitude. They want to know what supplements I’m taking. They want hope they can package.

But here’s the truth:
Some days, courage is just getting out of bed before noon.

Some days, it’s walking past the mirror without flinching.
Some days, it’s making your body a cup of broth even though you hate it.
It’s letting someone hug you when you want to disappear.
It’s answering texts with a heart emoji when really, you feel like a ghost.

People think courage roars.
But mine sounds like my name being called in a waiting room.
It sounds like the beep of a microwave.
It sounds like silence, broken only by the hum of the fridge while I cry in front of it.

And still—I move forward.

Not because I believe things will get better.
But because I’ve made peace with the possibility that they won’t—and I still want to be here.

Maybe that’s the cruelest part of it all.
I still want to be here.

Even after the mother loss. Even after the diagnosis. Even after the body I trusted betrayed me one cell at a time.
I want to be here. For the sky. For the coffee. For the way my dog looks at me like I’m still whole.

Courage is choosing life while staring directly at death.
Choosing to stay inside a body that hurts you.
Choosing to hope when history says not to.

I don’t know what’s next.
I’ve stopped pretending I do.

There’s no plan taped to the fridge. No five-year timeline. No bucket list in cursive script.
There’s just today. And sometimes, not even that—just the next five minutes.

But I keep showing up.

I show up for the appointments.
I show up for the broth.
I show up for the sunrise, when I’m lucky enough to want to see it.

I show up for the ache, because even the ache is proof I’m still here.

I walk with God, yes. But not behind. Not below.
Beside.
We walk shoulder to shoulder like two old enemies who’ve agreed to share the road.
We don’t talk much anymore, but there’s a rhythm to it now.
A kind of surrender.
A kind of peace.

Grief walks with us too.
It doesn’t slow me down anymore.
It just keeps pace, quiet and heavy.
It’s not something I carry—
It’s someone I know.

This is my courage now:
Not fighting the dark, but living inside it long enough to find shapes.
Not pretending I’m okay, but knowing I’m still worth loving even when I’m not.
Not needing God to be good, just needing God to stay.

I don’t know where the road leads.
But I’ve survived worse.
And I’m still walking.

I don’t need the road to make sense anymore.
I just need the strength to keep walking it.

A blog post by Rachel Smak on grief, loss, and lessons from stage 3C rectal cancer