miles levin
Begin with life as you find it and make it better.
LIVE(meaningfully)
MILES LEVIN
Miles Levin was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer of the soft tissues in June of 2005.
After the diagnosis in June 2005, he consciously made his ensuing battle with the deadly cancer into his life's work. He reinvented himself, growing quickly from a funny and forgetful teen into a conscientious student and a writer who acquired an international following.
Miles made the final two years of his life count in unexpected ways, and to a vast and growing audience, on carepages.com, an online blog. His parents, Jon and Nancy Levin, and sister, Nina, 16, also became familiar to the international audience who signed in to read "LevinStory," on a regular basis.
From the time his story became public in this Detroit News column on April 23 until his death, he used his growing recognition to teach lessons about living and dying. He graduated from Cranbrook's Upper School. He also delivered a commencement speech beside Bob Woodruff, the former ABC anchor who became his friend. In a letter to Miles, Woodruff told him, "You are my teacher, my hero, my friend."
At the June commencement ceremonies, Miles, 18, urged his classmates to seek justice in the world. "If my struggle with cancer galvanizes actions of goodness," he told them, " I can rest assured that even if I succumb to the rogue cells I will leave behind a legacy of victory. Dying is not what scares me. It's dying and having had no impact."
Although few of his thousands of blog readers had ever met him, they wrote using adjectives of awe, describing him as a teacher and themselves, most often, as "grateful" to hear his lessons. He compared his life to a golfer swinging gaily at a bucket of golf balls, until only a few remain. "Now with just a handful left," he wrote, "each swing becomes more meaningful."
"I just have to keep going, to search for a higher meaning," he said. To do so was a way to squeeze more out of life, and vanquish death.
He tried to think of cancer as a gift. "I am living more richly than I ever was before cancer, so if I die, will it have been worth it just to get these years of super living?"
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