Is This Your King? Yes . He. Is! – Michael B. Jordan on Chadwick Boseman

Colon cancer. Does the English language contain two worse words?

I suffer from hemorrhoids. Every year, I have to give a stool sample to confirm the blood in my stool result from hemorrhoids not colon cancer. Waiting for the results is always nerve-racking. I am confident the tests will always come back negative, but the thought of having cancer petrifies me. My son already experienced enough loss in his life. He does not need to lose me as well.

This month, colon cancer claimed the lives of two individuals I admired from a far.

First, we lost Jamie Samuelsen, a local sports radio talk show. Unbelievably, I listened to Jamie over half of both of our lives. Jamie was born less than three months before me. Automatically, I felt a connection. In addition, his sport takes combined thought, reason and logic instead of the hot takes made famous by Stephen A. Smith and lesser talented talking heads. If I were a sports talk show host, I would be like Jamie: measured, even-keeled and judicious.

In January 2019, a doctor diagnosed Jamie with Stage IV Colon Cancer. He survived another 18 months including playing a three set tennis match a few weeks prior to his death. Sadly, his health deteriorated quickly, and he died less than a month after his tennis match.

Next, we lost Chadwick Boseman, The Black Panther. Zion and I love The Black Panther. Chadwick portrayed The Black Panther with soul, cool, grace, intelligence and toughness. The epitome of Blackness. He brought the same qualities to other characters he played like James Brown, Thurgood Marshall and Jackie Robinson.

Similar to Jamie, Chadwick kept his diagnosis secret. Unbelievably, the doctor diagnosed his cancer in 2016, and he kept it secret for four years and 10 movies. He finally succumbed this past Friday.

Whenever I feel like “cancer cannot happen to me” or “I can push that colonoscopy off to next year”, I will think of Jamie and Chadwick. Their strength. Their courage. Their quiet fights. Most of all, I will think of how much they would want me to take Colon Cancer seriously. I will never forget this lesson.