My feelings on getting breast cancer are so complex, they have been brewing since my own mom was diagnosed decades ago. Over the years as I was raised around this disease my outlook on faith, fate and future grew a bit crooked like a tender sapling without support. Talking was not something that was done, communication meant something very different then it does now.
When I was very young I lived life like there was no tomorrow because of having grown up around breast cancer and multiple recurrences... My number was next in my mind. Always knowing that I too would fall victim to this disease but unlike my mother I would not hang on straining an entire families resources only to end up breaking our hearts. In the end collectively we hurt and sobbed and yet could not will her breaths to keep them coming. Slowly they stopped and just as slowly we let go of that time which had been in suspended animation and walked into the world and tried to live our lives.
I kept her busy as my guardian angel tempting fate at every turn, after all I had already looked through the crystal ball of time and seen my death.
The years went on and my children came, with them my healthy life affirming attitude did to. I developed a natural fear of death for the first time... I had I purpose for my existence and I would not leave these gifts from God, so I made peace with with Him.
Life seems to have kicked me at every chance, good thing that I have had extra strong shins. But honestly I thought losing a husband and having a stroke was penance for anything I might yet owe. But we don't set the penance or the fines life charges... We just comply.
Well here I am betrayed by my body with a cancer I inherited before I was born. Yet I'm straining my brain to recall the moment when I earned it... I struggle because the images I have are of my moms experience which was so long ago and painful yet some are as if they happened yesterday. I can hear my father breaking the news of the first tumor my mom had to my brother and me when we where just small kids. Then the three of us kneeled by the window and prayed that the lumps in her body would go away. I prayed hard, closed my eyes and believed.
My dad always said that a sapling without support will grow crooked and may not be as strong. True. But dad this tree grew in spite of that. While my parents were waging war on cancer I blew in the wind and got twisted up in spots but my will to reach the sky was strong.
My will is stronger than ever...
And my kids? I have constant vigil on staking their still growing impressionable minds firmly to solid ground. This might be a short storm or a long one but they will be held down firmly. They will never sway unwatched...
This week is chemo free, my next treatment is one week from tomorrow. This process is cumulative so if last week kept me down for 6 days next time may be more brutal send prayers or good wishes - you know God turns them into daisies by the road...
Thank you for all the daisies so far, I hear they're coming up everywhere!
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