Cancer sucks and it doesn't teach you anything

After reading this following tripe on Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacey-kramer/finding-a-gift-in_b_2877772.html

I felt like I had to write this in defense of my brother...


A brain tumor diagnosis is not a gift if you die but a brain tumor is so awful you will consider dying a gift. 
My brother suffered grand mal seizures and gagged on tumor-induced effusion in his lungs all the while going blind before he died---hell for him and a paler version for us as we watched him suffer.
What is to be gained? Only the abject desire for one to carry the burden of illness for another. 
But that is not how cancer works. In Life, you are born alone and you suffer alone and you die alone. No matter how many people surround your bed. Your experience is yours alone and you do not speak for anyone-- sole yourself. 
I won't speak for my dead brother but he was an extraordinarily brave and courageous man. Towards the end we prayed for the gift of dying to come to my brother. He suffered tremendously through an inoperable brain tumor for 18 months. It was an insult to his bravery and the goodness in his heart that cancer stole his Life. 
A brain tumor killed a handsome, brilliant, funny and kind 18-year old man. He was my older brother. Absolutely nothing good came out of his death. 
Except it taught us that sometimes Death is a release. 
In other words unless you have died and faced the afterlife and can speak of its wonders and mystery, please remind us all that you only speak for yourself.