OPINION:
I had intended to write a column this week about Russian President Vladimir Putin arriving hat in hand for his state visit to China. I thought there might be some value in assessing how Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, is exploiting the Kremlin’s costly war in Ukraine to turn Russia into Beijing’s vassal state.
But that piece of punditry will have to wait because a few days ago, I learned that my friend Erik Rees’ wife, Stacey, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She will undergo surgery and radiation on June 4.
Tragically, this is not the first time that the Rees family has faced this dread disease. Erik and Stacey’s daughter Jessie was stricken with brain cancer at age 11. In the year she courageously battled cancer before her death in 2012, Jessie created “Joy Jars,” which she filled with toys and gifts to brighten the days of children like her in the fight for their lives against cancer.
As a legacy, the Jessie Rees Foundation honors Jessie’s memory by holding Mobile Joy Jar events across the country and distributing hundreds of thousands of Joy Jars to children in need worldwide.
I understood immediately when Erik explained to me that the news of Stacey’s diagnosis “brought up a ton of PTSD for her and our family.”
The traumatic news about Stacey took me back to the day in January 2017 when the oncologist informed my wife, Kim, and me that she had a cancerous tumor in her pancreas. Shocked and traumatized, we fought cancer together, along with a legion of friends and family, who gave Kim their unwavering support.
After multiple surgeries and months of chemotherapy, Kim died in 2021 at the age of 41.
My sons and I support the Jessie Rees Foundation to honor Kim’s memory. We have held Joy Jar events in our hometown and have learned how joy flows to the children who receive the Joy Jars and to those who helped prepare them.
It’s always the Rees family and Grant Frum, the Jessie Rees Foundation’s director of community development, who regularly reach out to me and my sons with the most kind and consoling words, especially on the hardest days for us, such as Mother’s Day. Their empathy is extraordinarily deep. They understand our grief as well as anyone could, and their heartfelt sympathy is never-ending.
My heart breaks again for Stacey and Erik.
The Rees family has been through so much already. Just like the children they support in the fight against pediatric cancer, they do not deserve this. Cancer is cruelly arbitrary.
There is a lot to admire about Erik. He is a model father, husband, friend and philanthropist. He is also a pastor.
“Your 11-year-old daughter has cancer.”
“Your wife has cancer.”
And yet he has stayed strong. Jessie’s battle with her disease only strengthened Erik’s relationship with God. As they prepare to support Stacey in her fight against cancer, the Rees family is “holding on to God and each other.”
And they are also holding on to Jessie’s motto: “NEGU — Never Ever Give Up.” Stacey, Erik emphasized, “is the strongest lady I know and will beat this.”
I competed in sports in high school and college. I served for decades in the CIA, including years side by side with U.S. military forces in war zones. But the toughest people I’ve ever had the honor of meeting are those who have cancer.
I first met Stacey at last year’s Jessie Rees Foundation gala in Los Angeles. Together, we stood with children whose spirit and resilience had been lifted with Joy Jars as they bravely carried on their fight against cancer.
So this week, I thought it best to take a break from the national security issues of the day and think about what matters most.
While he thanks the Lord for “surrounding Stacey with an amazing medical team,” Erik also voices a hope that we can “collectively surround her with prayer now and on June 4.”
And that’s what my sons and I will be thinking about in the coming days — praying, as Erik entreated us, for “complete healing, successful procedures, minimal pain, low anxiety, and a quick recovery” for Stacey.
We’re not asking why cancer struck the Rees family again. We are focused on what we can do to support them in these trying times, just as they have cared for so many cancer-afflicted children and their families in their darkest moments.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on X @DanielHoffmanDC.
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