Something about the interest we all share in snakes and reptiles makes me feel like this is a community. It's more than a hobby for most people as so many of us find solace in our animals. But it's also noteworthy how people on here care about other people's animals like they care about the people who own them. So, I guess I feel comfortable sharing. Sometimes it is hard because I don't want to come off as using my experiences as a basis to gain excess attention, but I found this forum, read through it and found people to be quite sensitive here.

I don't have exactly the same journey, and trust me it wasn't voluntary in the slightest.

I am 24 years old. At the age of 8 my mother died of breast cancer, leaving my father, older brother and myself. My brother was 12 at the time. She passed away a week after Mother's day. That gave me a pretty particular childhood, as I was inundated with attention that I didn't quite want, and most of it came in the form of pity or sympathy (at least from my vantage). My house was also always so quiet, empty and boring growing up, so I spent most of my time in the backyard creek watching frogs and minnows. In fact, I was outside at the exact time of my mother's death, playing in the creek. She decided that at 8 it was too young, so I missed it.

More recently I went through a further loss with my father from colon cancer last year, a week after Father's day (I am serious). He was an retired JAG officer, so thank goodness he was covered at the VA. For my mother, she was diagnosed while my father was between jobs, and our family without health insurance. The economic toll of breast cancer on my family was only second to the emotional toll. It affected me for the rest of my life, up until college when I fewer options.
My father's diagnosis came during my junior year. I had to take time off twice throughout my education to move back home and watch my father and tend to his needs as he went through chemo. I had to clean up the family house (which hadn't been cleaned out in far toooo long) while also visiting my father in the hospital as he lay dying.
Basically, I feel like I am stuck in a Charles ****ens novel, and given my experiences in high school English I don't relish the opportunity. Sometimes I make a crass joke about how I am one step closer to being Batman, but I do that only to cut the tension that materializes.
I am at the point where hearing older people tell me "You have the rest of your life ahead of you" almost puts me in a panic attack because the proposition of having the rest of my life still ahead of me makes me wonder what else can go wrong. I worry about having kids because I feel like I am a ticking time-bomb, so I am scared to leave behind kids, but I am also scared of passing on a higher risk of cancer to them.
I try hard to have a good disposition throughout the day, because I hate inflicting myself and such on others who would be otherwise happy. But always I'll think about not having parents, not having the advice they'd give, not having them bicker at me for having bugs in the house (strange how one comes to miss certain things in particular).
It took me two years to tell my dad I had a snake. I always hid it from him when he came to visit me, and when he finally found out, the disgruntled, grumpy, but curious face he made was classic. He asked to see the tank, I asked if he wanted me to take it out and he said nope! But from then on he asked about how it and my other pets were doing because he knew I cared about them.
I guess why i was unsure about posting this in here was because I don't have a defined journey I aspire to. I wish I had a concrete goal at this point but I don't know. I've grown pretty cynical because this isn't the first time I've been treated to, "Time heals all wounds," "He's in a better place with God now," "Maybe you should find someone to talk to," "God has a plan," "God doesn't give you challenges that you cannot overcome."
In reference to the last one, I say "I think God has too high of an opinion of me."
But that's been my struggle, and it has been sucky, and cancer should go (fill in something so obscene and brazen I'd get kicked off the forum) itself.