As I am writing this piece, it is approximately 1:43 a.m. on Friday, January 19. In about three hours, you will be waking up. In about four hours, you will be arriving at the hospital. Two hours after that, doctors will start to administer general anesthesia. They will then begin the operation to remove the cancerous tumor that has developed on your thyroid.

Of course, I don't need to recount these details to you. You are living them, the very words I'm writing personified and realized, every bit of it as real as you and me and cancer.

I met you at the very beginning of my freshman year of high school. You were walking to class and tripped up the stairs (I still attest to this day that the top step of the D Wing stairwell is slightly taller than the rest.) I noticed you and your strewn about papers and then began to help you gather your things. That was the start of the dearest friendship I've ever yet to have. Some of the best things in life come unexpectedly, as do some of the worst.

There are seldom moments in life when we are forced to look in the mirror and confront our own mortalities; this, however, is one of those pivotal moments. It's a scary, scary thing to think that, one day, my best friend may not be there by my side. So, I choose not to think like that. Life is too short to think that we're all just stuck on a speeding, spinning rock, simply waiting for the next outcome of a worst-case scenario. There is a function to optimism. You're strong and kick-ass and can easily overcome any obstacle standing in your path. Cancer (you've told me that you hate the word and I do too...it's such an ugly word, indeed) is no different. You've never been one to be reduced down to a printed black and white statistic, and you sure as hell aren't going to be any time soon.

I'm not going to profess that I know what this must be like for you to endure or how you may feel. Because, truthfully, I don't. You've told me that you're scared, and it's okay to feel that way; I'm scared, too. I wish that I weren't 400 miles away. I wish that I could be there to visit you during your hospital stay. I wish that I could do more than offer my thoughts and prayers, because we both hate it when that's all that politicians do. But I am a not a lawmaker, and cancer won't be deterred by policy change.

What I do know is that you are my best friend, that you are resilient and that this is just a very minor bump in the road (or lump on the thyroid for that matter...can't live life as a cynic, right?). You are going to come out of this thing, and on top. You will have new battle scars (ones to be shown off with immense pride) and renewed outlooks on life. This is not the end of your story. Or of mine. Or of ours, together. This is a turning of the page, the beginning of a new chapter. You've still got your happily ever after to chase and that is many, many pages away.

Now, whatever happens today, and tomorrow, and the day after, whether your surgery is a one-and-done or a first-of-many, I just want you to know that every dressing up as pirates for a free dozen doughnuts at Krispy Kreme, every heartbreak healed with mutual bitching and pints of ice cream, every fight and feud, every late night Kona run, every Starbucks date--I wouldn't change a single moment of it. I wouldn't trade a single one of those memories with you for the world. You are my best friend, and nothing is going to get in the way of the many memories we still have yet to make.

Just tonight, we were FaceTiming, and you took a personality quiz. One of the questions posed was as follows: Would you rather your child be smart or kind? For a few moments, we bickered back and forth--I on the side of kindness, you on the side of intellect. We debated, and we laughed, and we smiled. Now, I don't know whether or not I am ever going to have children. But, if ever I were to, I hope they would grow up to be just like their Aunt Frenchie.

I hope they would be both.