U.S. Sen. John S. McCain said the following regarding his struggle against brain cancer: “Maybe I’ll have another five years, maybe with the advances in oncology they’ll find new treatments for my cancer that will extend my life. Maybe I’ll be gone before you hear this, my predicament is, well, rather unpredictable.”

The Arizona Republican made that assessment on an audio recording relating to his new book, which is to be published later this month.

I want to offer a bit of perspective that I hope, dear reader, you take in the spirit I offer it. I offer this to give Sen. McCain more than a glimmer of hope in his valiant fight.

It is merely that no one knows “how much longer” they’ll be here.

I enjoy good health. I don’t expect to die in the next 30 minutes. No one — except those intent on purposely ending their life — should know when their time is up.

I surely want Sen. McCain to beat the disease he is battling. I want him to return to the Senate, where he has served for more than three decades. I want him to continue to speak out, to lend his voice to the issues of the day. Will I agree with him always? Oh, probably not. Indeed, I’m likely to disagree him more than agree with the senator.

I get the fatalism he is expressing in his memoir, “The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations,” but let’s seek to keep it in some semblance of perspective. It well might be that McCain believes he has been living on borrowed time as it is, given what he endured from 1967 to 1973 as a Vietnam War prisoner who suffered unbearable and unspeakable torture at the hands of his captors.

I want him to draw a bit of strength from the belief that no one can know when the end will come. No one!