I remember vividly the day before Thanksgiving in 2003. A surgeon diagnosed me with Hodgkin’s lymphoma but said since it was caught in its early stages, this was the “best bad news” I could have gotten.

This memory came back to me after I read a headline from the Inquirer on Monday:

Man, 19, shot; 1st Phila. homicide in nearly a week.

And then I began thinking to myself — In all of my scouring of Philly.com in the past week, I didn’t read one “shooting” article. Amazing how it got by me — I would’ve assumed it’d be out of the ordinary had I not seen one.

But the headline also implies that something better is happening, I suppose. This death of William Wilson is the city’s 188th homicide this year. One year ago at this time, there were 248.

That drop of 24 percent should mean something, I guess. But it still comes with 188 prices to pay.