Tomorrow night NBC will air “Farah’s Story”, a two-hour documentary chronicling Farah Fawcett’s battle with cancer. Filming began in 2006, when Fawcett was first diagnosed, and has continued well throughout the beleagured star’s fight with the deadly disease.
If you think it’s appropriate, I encourage you to watch this with your child. I lost my grandfather to lung cancer in the mid-90’s, and was completely unprepared for the experience. Even to this day, I think a lot of people can’t quite comprehend what a cancer victim goes through, what sort of physical hardships and symptoms occur, and how best to help someone when there doesn’t seem to be anything you can possibly do.
It’s quite likely that many of you know someone who is living with an ongoing debilitating health condition, and it’s my hope that by watching “Farah’s Story”, you can show your child what it means to have compassion, what it is to continue to fight against overwhelming odds, and in the end, that love is the only thing that saves us.
However, I won’t chastise you for watching this alone, if you think it might be a little too intense for a young mind. Only you know your child well enough to know whether this will be appropriate, and there are certainly many ways to teach these valuable lessons. But if you’re a family that watches TV together, this will be a great opportunity for you all to bond.
