"A champion is someone who gets up when he can't" -Jack Dempsey

“The physician’s duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face, and make sense of, their own existence.” -Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

When I first started boxing, I was surprised to learn how much art exists to depict such a brutal sport. For as many times I have laced up gloves, I have watched, read, and listened to as many stories of fighters who have stepped into the ring. I watched Rocky, Million Dollar Baby, Raging Bull, On the Waterfront, the list goes on. More still have writers like AJ Liebling, Ernest Hemingway, and Pete Hamill spilled ink seeking to describe in words the meaning of a sport where men prefer to converse in fists. Without exception, all of them speak of striving to overcome oneself and their circumstances.

I think that the fight against cancer is in many ways similar. We form a community of support behind one person. We find strength in ways we didn’t know we had. We fight to overcome, not just for one person, but for everyone.

I won’t try to add anything to the extensive canon of boxing that better poets like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson haven’t already said, but I’ll state my case plainly:

If you happen to see any moments of strength, grace, or resilience up there in the ring, please know that it is only a child’s idea of those things. Please ask for the fighter’s mother instead to see the real thing. She beat cancer and continues to kick ass on a daily basis.