When words fail

Ellie is 4 now, but she was 2 when they found the cancer.

For two years our family has been following her journey, from the surgery to remove one of her kidneys, to the torture of chemotherapy, to the many other horrific effects of sin and misery on that child's sweet little body.

In June of last year, the doctors pronounced her in that most blessed of states: remission. We pounded the floor with happiness and watered our pillows with tears of relief.

Yet.

Her prognosis is not good. She has, if I remember correctly (I hope I don't), about a 30 percent chance of surviving. But so far, her scans, done every three months, have all come back NED, no evidence of disease.

Until now.

Last week, her mother, a childhood friend of mine and the daughter of my parents' best friends in college, told her friends and family via CaringBridge that this latest scan shows two small nodules on her lung.

Not to worry. Could be caused by something as innocuous as a cold inflaming her lungs. Then again, they have already found evidence of disease there. Her particular kind of cancer apparently likes the lungs.

They have to wait four weeks to rescan her. If the nodules have grown, the cancer is back. If not, another uneasy reprieve.

The day I heard about this I went catatonic. The child is not mine. I've never even clamped eyes on her in person. But the thought of what my friend must be feeling, the potential of what may be ahead for that family, that child, that mother, ripped through me like fire.

I mean, what exactly do you say to the mother of a child who very well could be dying? My friend's Facebook page bore these sentiments from well-meaning people, meant to comfort: God has a plan. God knows what He's doing. God is in control.

Such words hit me funny. I know God does, after all, have a plan, does know what He's doing, and is, in fact, in control. But if it was your baby, your dewy-eyed, tow-headed, tiny wisp of a girl, so brave from months and months of brutal chemotherapy, who was found with the evil disease perhaps growing once again inside her spindly body, just now sprouting hair again, and for the first time in over a year, looking pink and healthy, would such words comfort you?

So tell me, dear readers, especially those of you who have walked with grief: What should people say? What words will bring comfort to the worried, the sorrowing, the grieving, those who are walking under the shadow of death?