Race For The Cure

The other day, my six year old son and I were watching tv. After viewing a commercial about "Race for the Cure" which is a 5 K run/walk held all over the United States in an effort to raise breast cancer awareness and money, my son looked at me and asked, "Mommy, can men get breast cancer?"

I told him that yes, sometimes men get breast cancer too.

He then asked, "But Mommy how can men get breast cancer when they don't have any breasts?"

What followed was a brief anatomy lesson, that I'm sure was only partially understood because as I mentioned words like "tissue" and "areola", he would look confused and ask for clarification. At one point, we even pulled up his shirt to use his own body to help explain how even though men and women's bodies appear to be different; they are in actuality, very similar.

On a very basic and fundamental level, we are all similar. We each experience the same response to painful stimuli (emotional or physical). Disease and illness don't discriminate and are equal opportunity destroyers. After all, once the common cold gets its viral hooks in you, no one escapes the ensuing snot fest.

I suppose it is in understanding our sameness, that I fail to understand why the human race seems so determined to destroy itself by perpetrating horrible acts upon itself. Mass genocide, ethnic cleansing, war, child abuse, murder, rape, pedophilia, starvation, female genital mutilation, theft, assault, racism, torture...this list could probably run for pages.

We are nothing, if not ingenius in the ways we devise to torment both ourselves and one another.

I just don't get it...

Do YOU?

Jerri
PS--For more information on "Race for the Cure" please visit this link!
http://www.komen.org/intradoc-cgi/idc_cgi_isapi.dll?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=298