“Clearly God was in some kind of mood on my birthday.”

“PRAISE FOR ‘THE JOURNEY HOME’Many saints are known and praised by all. We pray to them in litanies and celebrate their feast days. But the vast majority of holy men and women live heroic lives quietly before God. Loyal to family, lovers of God, servants in the Church, these unsung saints live everyday life as an example for us. David Hanneman is one such man. His story is exemplary and should be told to the world. He not only lived a noble life, but also suffered with heroism and grace as he passed into glory. This is a story to encourage and bless us all. We are thankful to Joseph Hanneman for sharing his father and making his story known to us who need such examples to encourage us as we face the difficulties and challenges of life.”

“It’s really going to happen. I really won’t ever go back to school. Not ever. I’ll never be famous or leave anything worthwhile behind. I’ll never go to college or have a job. I won’t see my brother grow up. I won’t travel, never earn money, never drive, never fall in love or leave home or get my own house.It’s really, really true.A thought stabs up, growing from my toes and ripping through me, until it stifles everything else and becomes the only thing I’m thinking. It fills me up like a silent scream.”

“This is the story of how Dad lived with his lung cancer. But it is much more. Through his illness and the miracles we experienced, I came to see that Dad’s was not just a journey. It was a journey home. Home to God. ”

“I didn’t tell him that the diagnosis came three months after I got my first period. Like: Congratulations! You’re a woman. Now die.”

“Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.”

“It’s all right, Tessa, you can go. We love you. You can go now.”Why are you saying that?”She might need permission to die, Cal.”I don’t want her to. She doesn’t have my permission.”

“Because there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.”

“What is cancer, he thought to himself, if not a terrorist attack from above? What is it that God is doing, if not terrorizing us in protest against…something. Something so lofty and transcendental that it is beyond our grasp?”

“I am not afraid to die; I am only afraid of saying goodbye to you forever.”

“My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.”

“A rumor is a social cancer: it is difficult to contain and it rots the brains of the masses. However, the real danger is that so many people find rumors enjoyable. That part causes the infection. And in such cases when a rumor is only partially made of truth, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the information may have gone wrong. It is passed on and on until some brave soul questions its validity; that brave soul refuses to bite the apple and let the apple eat him. Forced to start from scratch for the sake of purity and truth, that brave soul, figuratively speaking, fully amputates the information in order to protect his personal judgment. In other words, his ignorance is to be valued more than the lie believed to be true.”

“I love to walk. Walking is a spiritual journey and a reflection of living. Each of us must determine which path to take and how far to walk; we must find our own way, what is right for one may not be for another. There is no single right way to deal with late stage cancer, to live life or approach death, or to walk an old mission trail.”

“He can heal me. I believe He will. I believe I’m going to be an old surely Baptist preacher. And even if He doesn’t…that’s the thing: I’ve read Philippians 1. I know what Paul says. I’m here let’s work, if I go home? That’s better. I understand that.”

“You may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself.”