Insensitivities

I came across a piece of news online, about the official opposition leader of Canada being diagnosed with a second cancer. He fought off his (first) prostate cancer, and though weakened, went on to lead his party to a surprising election victory. However, he is now stepping back from politics, if only temporarily, to fight the latest diagnosis.

It wasn't really the news of him stepping back that made me sad. It was reading the comments that some online users left behind that just made me feel so shocked about how people have so little sympathy and can be so wicked when it comes to politics. Though most of the disgusting comments have been deleted (moderated), I felt sick reading some that have not yet been removed.

Of course, there was an enormous outpouring of sympathy and well-wishes, some of which were very moving and personal. But then there are these array of vile, insensitive comments targeting and cursing a man who is already ill with perhaps the worst disease one could possibly imagine. Have these people got not sympathy for the suffering and pain of a fellow human being? Do they even know what it feels like for the patient and the family members to live with cancer and to go through the painfully, painfully testing and long treatments-- and to emerge unsure whether it will all succeed? They can not begin to imagine, cannot even begin to know unless they have experienced it themselves.

Cancer is no laughing matter, and certainly not fodder to fuel political bickering and material to use to add to someone's miseries and suffering, no matter which side of the political divide the person is on.