So the other day I attended a support group for people that have lost parents or siblings to Cancer.
Anyway. We had to show a picture of our loved one, and then choose a 'value' that represented them. Out of the group I struggled the most to choose a value that Thomas stood for or believed in. Like someone else already chose "fun" and "adventure," and we all know that little boys love fun and adventure. And so I really did struggle to choose a value to represent him.

I chose Bravery, but not for the reason you think.

We all went around in a group and explained why we chose the value for the person we lost.

"Bravery," I said. "This might seem like the obvious value to choose for anyone suffering from cancer, but when it comes to the people I love, when it comes to us and someone dealing with Cancer it doesn't make us brave or courageous. You don't have to be brave or courageous to fight cancer you just have to do it. You can't define someone as fighting for Cancer as people often do. And for someone dealing with the aftermath of cancer it neither counts; we have all been through times which shows we really aren't brave or courageous, times were we give up over and over again, times where we do the worse and think the worse.
I'm not brave. And I think you guys can agree with me, that we aren't brave people for having to deal with cancer we are broken people and although we occasionally put on a "brave" face we are still dead on the inside.
I chose Bravery because my brother was six and he was like any other six year old boy, he was a budding personality who hadn't properly chosen his values or understood who he was as a person and what he stood for. He could have had so many of the values that I gazed over; but he didn't, because he was still growing and developing, he wasn't old enough to even understand half of these values.
But I chose Bravery not because he was brave for battling cancer. He wasn't brave for battling cancer. He was dying and my family didn't tell him he was dying because you can't tell a six year old he is dying. I chose Bravery because Thomas was brave before he had cancer. He was a very anxious boy but he wasn't afraid to be loud or obnoxious or speak his mind. And I loved that.
He would run around the house screaming and headbutt the boys of the house in the crotch and he didn't care, it was his way of saying hello. He would say the most ridiculous stupid things about poo and just silly boy giggle stuff.
There was this one time a few weeks before he got diagnosed that he went out with his best friend to go bike riding. Now his best friend really did like Thomas but was really afraid that Thomas would find out that he had a girls bike helmet (because it was pink) so what happened was the boy painted his pink helmet black with paint before he went on a play date with Thomas. When he and Thomas were sitting in the car together, Thomas looked at the black helmet and saw the paint peeling off the helmet, revealing the pink helmet, he turned to his friend and said 'That's Gay' just out loud and really upfront and obvious. What a little shit he was, and he got his bad language from his siblings. And I say things are gay a lot and as someone that is queer I don't use the word as a derogatory term, else that would literally be insulting myself. Thomas picked up my language and he was a little shit like that. He was brave not because he battled cancer, he was brave because he spoke his mind and did what he wanted."