In the hospital, there’s a Bell. It’s a thing so sacred I’ve only heard it ring a couple of times. The sound cuts through the din of I.V. fluid dispensers, nurses’ shoes on vinyl floors, chemo pumps and children’s television. Its peal is resonant with relief and pain, science and prayer, hard work and dumb luck.

The Bell rings when a child finishes their cancer treatment. And, soon, it will be my kid’s turn.

For this, he’s waited and wished and begged for nine months – the same time it took my wife to make him. Nine months to create a life, nine months to restore it.

We’ve started to talk about it – his Bell Day. Mostly it’s about the sports he’ll be able to start playing again or the kind of party we’ll throw. But this time it’s deeper. This will sound weird, he confides, but I’m a bit scared about chemo finishing.

It doesn’t sound weird at all. I know exactly what he means.

Make no mistake; this side of the Bell is a hellish place, filled with grief and pain and panic.

But, it’s a kind of utopia too.

Here, trivial things don’t matter. You have license to say forbidden things like, fuck it, it’s only work and sorry, this isn’t the right time.

People are forgiving of your mistakes, mindful of your struggles and conscious of your priorities. Disapproval, judgment, anger, impatience all wither in response to my kid has cancer. In their place, love metastasises.

It’s a blueprint for a better world.

Just as church bells once served to call a community together, this Bell ought to remind us to be kind and patient, forgiving and empathetic. To relax arbitrary rules. To give things away for free. To feed our friends and to ask people how they are doing and what they they need.

Our new Golden Rule for life is this: treat everyone like they might have a kid with cancer.

May the message reverberate well after the clapper has hit the cup.