Well, at any rate, we now have less chance of dying of cancer," quipped C. S. Lewis in response to learning of Hitler's invasion of Poland, knowing that his own country was on the brink of joining the war. As a World War I veteran, he knew the ugliness of combat. And for a man seldom without a pipe or cigarette, he also understood the risks of cancer. His droll response to the Nazi campaign illustrates that his life was indelibly marked by both war and cancer. And it's difficult to tell which had the greater impact.
In battle during the First World War, Lewis was hit by shrapnel, the injury from which would trouble him the rest of his life. But the wounds inflicted by the dark disease of cancer would prove even more painful and devastating. In one letter Lewis summarized this sad reality: "The disease is of course cancer: by which I lost my mother, my father, and my favorite aunt." He would later add his wife to this list of causalities.
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