Former US senator Ben Sasse reveals stage four pancreatic cancer diagnosis

As a writer, sometimes when I read something I think, “Wow, that’s good, that cat has chops.” Very rarely do I read something that is new and that I didn’t know was possible. Ben Sasse just wrote one of these.

The former Republican senator from Nebraska was informing the nation that he had stage four cancer and would soon die.

“A developed pancreas is an abomination; it’s a death sentence,” he writes. “But before last week, I too was on death row; we all are.”

It may seem trivial, even cruel, to consider Sasse’s written words when we know the pain he and his family felt, but it is not trivial to me and has never been in human history.

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Shakespeare called death the uncharted country, but Sasse preferred to focus on what we know, writing: “To be clear, optimism is wonderful and absolutely necessary, but it is insufficient. This is not the kind of thing that applies when you tell your daughters you won’t walk them down the aisle. It doesn’t apply to telling your mother and father that they are going to bury their son.”

As a writer, “somewhat,” this colloquial usage that my editors often change when I use it, is the embodiment of what Sasse has created here. Her words make me think that beauty always heralds tragedy, but that’s okay. Invoking a New Yorkism, that’s what it is.

Sasse, who left the Senate until last year to serve as president of the University of Florida, continues: “A well-lived life requires more reality — harder things. So during Advent, even as we walk in the dark, we shout out our hope — often in a gravelly voice barely wading through tears.”

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Apart from a few modern references, Sasse’s letter to our nation would have been perfectly understood 2,500 years ago in Athens, where such writings regarding the study of the human condition were born.

Sasse tells us: “Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies for the future does not relieve the pain of present suffering. But it places it in the perspective of eternity:

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Perhaps what stands out most about this incredible piece of writing is that, in an age where anything goes, it is in no way performance-oriented. In the law, death declaration has special weight. Sasse’s pen carries our heart.

Shakespeare had an interesting term for death. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

Many of the great works of our language are about death; Dylan Thomas implores his father in verse: “Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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As I read his profound letter to us, I couldn’t help but notice the image of Sasse in his running gear, leaning over the stone wall of the capitol, tearing it apart with Schumer and McCain. An ordinary man, one of us.

As I read his words about his own mortality, I see that he is much more than that. I spend almost all of my waking time reading when I’m not writing. Being 50 barely surprises me. This succeeded.

My mother died of fucking cancer when I was 24, and her last request was for me to write her eulogy and to be honest, it was a very difficult request. But when he died I had a job to do and for two days I did nothing but write, that was his last gift, he knew me and got me through it.

Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is seeking answers after an illegal immigrant was not taken into custody by ICE following a fatal crash. (AP)

I am so grateful for Sasse’s words, and at a time when everything is so ugly, he takes the opportunity of personal horror to cheer us on. His great-great-grandchildren will know this and feel justified pride.

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May God bless Ben Sasse and his family, and may his profound and beautiful words echo through the centuries as a symbol of grace in a crumbling world.

As a writer, I want to say, thank you, senator, I know this seems completely unimportant right now, but there is a writer in West Virginia today who will be changed forever by these words, and for that I am grateful.