Four years ago this week, I wrote this:

I never thought I’d be the one to write a mass email like this. People you don’t know write emails like this. People your mother-in-law works with; those people write emails like this.

Needless to say, I’m shocked. But here we are.

Doctors have found a “significant” tumor on the interior of the right side of Josiah’s brain via a CT scan this afternoon. They are unsure what the tumor is at this point in time. The tumor is blocking the drainage system built into the brain, meaning that cranial fluid can’t escape.

The last three weeks of May 2009 would turn out to be the most traumatic 23 days of my life.

I know I’ve written a lot about my son and his battle with cancer here in the past, and I know it’s weird to do it on a tech-centric website like 512.

The reality is that 512 isn’t just a tech site. It’s my site, and I choose to write what I care about. The month of May is burned in to my very DNA and thus gets fleshed out on these pages.

As intrusive as Josiah’s cancer is in his brain, it’s just as intrusive in my mind, heart and very soul. The same is true for my wife, and to a lesser extent, our friends, parents, neighbors, coworkers and more.

That’s what cancer does. It gets in places it shouldn’t be, like tree roots cracking a sidewalk from underneath.

I have my cracks. I have some big ones, actually. While Josiah bears physical scars, they aren’t all that different than the ones I carry. I just feel them more in May than any other time of year.