The Life We Have

After I final spoke to Rob Shaver, in December 2024, he stated he hadn’t had a foul day in 20 years.   

He had beforehand stated the identical to movie director Sam Worth-Waldman, quickly after their first assembly. Worth-Waldman thought he had misheard him. How may a person who had been residing with most cancers for 20 years, undergone greater than 60 radiation therapies (twice the typical lifetime quantity) and misplaced his hair 5 occasions to chemotherapy converse this fashion?   

Worth-Waldman was about to direct a brief documentary about Shaver, The Life We Have, which might comply with the latter’s journey by sickness over time and the way the profoundly tough expertise impressed and influenced his love of the outside. Although Shaver’s persistence stunned the filmmaker repeatedly over the months of the shoot—working every day regardless of power ache, as an illustration, or even climbing out of a simple chair to speak passionately with guests regardless of feeling exhausted—Worth-Waldman was significantly touched by Shaver’s gratitude and presence within the face of fixed setbacks.  

The Life We Have is a deeply transferring glimpse into the every day lifetime of Shaver, an REI gross sales specialist since 2016 (he’s at present on medical go away), a son and a runner recognized with Stage 4 Ewing’s sarcoma at age 28, in 2004. Ewing’s sarcoma is a uncommon and ruthless cancerous tumor that often seems in kids and younger adults. Docs gave Shaver 15% odds of surviving for 5 years. He had a burial fund prepared.   

For years, Shaver beat these odds, and he saved beating them, even because the most cancers returned. 

The Life We Have reveals us a tenacious, clear-eyed man who has lived practically two a long time with most cancers. The movie forces us to look life’s largest questions straight within the eye: How ought to we method the time we’ve got on earth? What’s a life well-lived? And how will we go on with objective once we know our time is close to its finish?   

The Streak  

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaver gained wider consideration for his unlikely three-year-long every day working streak – a stretch that noticed him masking 7,000 miles. 

“The Streak” started modestly sufficient: In 2021, regardless of being exhausted by nonetheless one other spherical of therapy, Shaver determined to shuffle one mile across the block. A lifelong athlete who missed utilizing his physique. He additionally missed being outdoors, after a lot time in hospitals. Shaver’s physician had instructed him to train his lungs, which the most cancers had unfold to and broken over time, or else he’d have to make use of an oxygen tank quickly. He determined he would run a mile each day so long as his physique allowed it. 

That first day was extra like a stroll, Shaver recalled. However sooner or later turned two days, then 10 days. One mile turned farther. An unbroken string started. He ran marathons round his neighborhood. He undertook multiday runs by the Colorado Rockies. The runs usually had been arduous, and they didn’t remedy him. Nonetheless, the streak was serving to him. As Shaver recounts within the movie, “I used to go see my physician. And he’d be like, ‘Are you having a tough time getting up stairs?’ And I’m like, ‘I ran 7 miles this morning.’” 

A Option to Dwell Deeply  

Worth-Waldman first envisioned a documentary about working, and about triumph within the face of adversity.   

In a short time, although, he realized that Shaver’s working streak was the least attention-grabbing a part of his story. Worth-Waldman was rather more captivated by the athlete’s philosophy and method to the time he had left.   

In The Life We Have, Shaver shares this outlook. “It’s about a lot extra than simply working,” he says of the Streak. “It’s actually a alternative, every day, to dwell deeply and completely, and with stunning effort. Not for outcomes. Not for cash or for fame or life-style. However for the richness of being alive.”  

In an interview final December, Shaver defined that he ran every day out of a need to “do justice to the reward that’s now.” Most cancers has taken so many issues from him, however the illness had carried out him one kindness: It woke up him to a deep, every day gratitude for all times.  

Shaver dismissed those that name his outlook particular or praiseworthy. “I didn’t have a alternative. Both I may dwell type of indignant and bitter and all the time discover ways in which this was unfair, or I may select to see the methods through which I used to be nonetheless fairly lucky,” he stated. “I may use it as an anchor for perspective. I may use it as a pathway to empathy and compassion for others.”   

Shaver instructed me he hopes that the angle he discovered over years of sickness is likely to be helpful to others in the same place.  

If you want to help Rob Shaver and different most cancers survivors, please donate to the Most cancers Assist Group.

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