My kid’s a superhero. He’s different from the rest, though. He doesn’t wear a showy costume with a big letter on the front. Instead, there’s a Big C inside of him.

The Big C is part of his origin story, like the spider that bit Peter Parker. The mutation started in his left kidney and then spread a little further. But, rather than giving him super-strength, it’s made his physical form weak and vulnerable.

Cancerboy doesn’t have any super powers at all (he barely has an immune system). He’s more like Batman, getting help from a league of sidekicks who possess different skills – O.T. Woman, Doc Onc, Pharma-boy.

His mum and I are in there too. We weren’t always his sidekicks, though. We used to be his superheroes. If he was hungry, we’d magic him a meal. If he had a question, we could often answer it with certainty. If he was sick, we’d bring him back to health within a few days.

The disease changed all this.

Now Cancerboy is never hungry – all his food tastes like metal.

His questions don’t lend themselves to “Yes” or “No” answers – there’s a lot more I-don’t-knows and let’s-wait-and-sees.

And, worst of all, there isn’t a fast acting antidote to give him. Rather, there’s a long regimen of treatments which have the cruel effect of making him better by making him worse. They pump in chemicals through a central venous catheter implanted in his chest which they hold from the outside and then push a needle into. Cancerboy hates this. He screams, yells, resists, pleads.

He’s angry with his mum and me for not being who he thought we were. We can’t fix this one for him, and he can’t understand why. He looks at us and shouts things like “Do something!” and “Make it stop!” and “Why can’t you help?!”

There’s no malice. He just feels forsaken.

In these moments, the psych suggests to treat him like a loveable drunk friend. “Come along, mate. I’ve got you. You’re alright. You don’t really mean that. Let’s get some rest and talk about it in the morning, bud.” You show patience, love, get him home, encourage him to drink lots of water, and help him sleep it off.

But, of course, this isn’t enough.

In the end, the kid is left with no option but to rely on his own resources to get through it.

He tries psyching himself up by listening to a playlist. He tries calming himself down by breathing. He tries positive self-talk: “You’ve got this. You can do it. This will make you better.” He tries self-pity: “I hate my life. This is too much for a kid.”

Whatever he does, he cries. He cries big and loud.

We’re not used to seeing our superheroes this way. The heroes in our dimension are stoic and still. They tend to meet their challenges nobly, eagerly, uncomplainingly.

But, the fact is, heroes walk in other dimensions too. Courage doesn’t have to be fast or beautiful or selfless or instinctive or transcendental.

Sometimes courage is just about facing your destiny and showing up again and again, each time being open enough to let it unfold in all its messy, frightened, complicated ugliness.