He lives in a medium-sized city in a medium-sized midwestern state. His dad is a lawyer, his mom a teacher. He likes to sing the Tigger song. He just turned two.

One day after his second birthday, his parents found out he has acute lymphocytic leukemia.

He doesn't know why he's sick. He only knows that going to the doctor means pain, lots of needles poking him, some of them punching through his bones. He knows that the medicine makes him feel bad. But still he eats. He shouts. He lives.

He is the son of one of my dearest friends in the world. He is the first (and, as yet, only) child born to a member of my college coterie. He is something of a surrogate son for me. He has never met me, never seen me, never even heard me speak. But he has me, and hundreds of other people who have never been in his physical presence, rooting for him. Praying for him, if that is within their metaphysical purview.

He has a good prognosis, a very good chance at a full cure. The great likelihood is that he will survive and have a full and complete life. Someday, he will meet many of the people who now can only sit and hope. He will not understand why some of them cry with joy when they see him. He will not know them, even when they act like they know him. He will be shy sometimes in these meetings, perhaps hiding behind his mother or father. But sometimes he will reach out, flashing that smile that so many of us have seen in pictures. We will rejoice, whatever he does. Because we now understand better the miracle of life. We will see it contained more completely within him.

It's one thing to be in a car wreck or some other scrape with death, an event which helps you sense your own mortality. Maybe it's something more mundane, an increasingly sore body after workouts at the gym or back pain that doesn't always go away. Signs of age are slowly creeping up on my friends and me as we approach (and surpass) the big 3-0. But a child presents a whole new sense of immortality. A legacy to be passed on. All of a sudden, you don't have to do everything yourself. You can leave something for the next generation to accomplish. Not a lessening in drive, necessarily, but a lessening in urgency. You now have time.

And so this is the cruelest blow, a life-threatening illness attacking our only child. Strike that "our". Too egotistical. He's not my child. But when I heard the news, I took it that way. I haven't had a good night's sleep since getting the late-night e-mail. Because, right or wrong, I invested some of my dreams in this boy. I wasn't going to hold him to them, of course, but nonetheless, I allowed myself to dream through him, as any parent does. I love his parents, and I love him. And so this news shatters me, twice. First, of course, for him, but also for the pain and agony of his parents. Rearranging life plans, consolidating finances, gearing up for a real life-and-death battle. As bad as I feel, I know that I cannot begin to comprehend the terror and dread that they must face.

The loss of immortality, once again. After my grandmother died of cancer in her late 60s, my great-grandmother said, "It's not right. This isn't supposed to happen". My grandmother had seen all of her grandchildren, had traveled the world, and in her three fights with cancer tested a number of experimental drugs and treatments, therapies from which my friends' son will no doubt indirectly benefit. But no matter how full and complete my grandmother's life was, my great-grandmother was right. It doesn't matter how old or how young a child is, that child is never supposed to die before the parents do. Never. And to face that possibility is every parent's worst nightmare.

Not only do I not understand, there's a big part of me that doesn't want to understand. I feel bad enough already. It's selfish, I know, but I don't want to take empathy that far. I can't. I'm not strong enough. I feel horrible confessing that, but it's true. In reality, all I can do is offer as much support as I can and hope for the best. That's all.

The little boy, two weeks past his second birthday, continues to fight. The initial news from his treatment is good. He's gonna win. He has to win. He will win.

Even if I can't stop crying right now.

Jon Worley hopes his friends can forgive him for writing about their pain.