It is Easter Sunday. I had dinner with my in-laws. I watched a bit of the Masters golf tournament and listened to the Red Sox find a way to lose the same game twice. I have been to the cemetery, walked around the yard, and done some cleaning.

I enjoyed dinner and the company of my in-laws. But the cemetery left me engulfed in grief–and when I arrived home, the house was too quiet again–that quiet that reminds me Jane is not here and that I will spend another night without her to talk to. We would have talked through the Masters tonight, tried to decipher the status of the Red Sox, and reveled in the beauty of the daffodils. I would sit on the couch massaging her feet while we finished off the Sunday papers and planned our post-Easter hunt for decorative bargains.

I try not to hate anyone or anything. I try to understand that her death has set things in motion that will save the lives of others. But I know how Mary felt at the base of the cross after “It is finished” and before the empty tomb. And my hatred for this disease is unspeakable. My anger at the Congresses that eliminated funding for this form of cancer and then never came back to reconsider it for 40 years is unspeakable. My anger at my own failures to get her diagnosed sooner–and for all the mistakes I made before her death–is unspeakable.

I will be the first to admit that none of this is logical. Diseases lack intelligence–they do not choose their victims and there is no true malice in them. They are a force of nature–and even if we are successful at eradicating this particular cancer, it will not be the end of meaningless, painful deaths.

Politicians are politicians. They have intelligence, but that does not mean they know what they are doing. They act and fail to act based on reasons that seem adequate to them. We can wish for more intelligent people in those roles, but given the way campaigns are financed–the way we choose our leaders based on who would make a good drinking companion–we are not likely to do significantly better than we do now. I can dislike the results of our stupidity, but I cannot hate human beings because of it.

And logically I know I made the best decisions I could have made–made the best arguments I could have made–given what I knew at the time and given where Jane’s mind was at the time.

But the anger is still there. All I can do is to try to channel that anger in constructive ways. I cannot kill death–even with help. But perhaps, together, we can remove a few arrows from his quiver.

I don’t just want more birthdays for people with cancer or heart disease or Alzheimer’s–I want more days, weeks and years of productive, meaningful, and enjoyable life–period.