October was breast cancer awareness month. As a survivor, you would think this carries significance for me. But years ago, the wounds were too fresh – I made glib remarks such as, ‘yeah, i’m ‘aware’ of breast cancer’. My friend embraced the breast cancer walks as her cause, and though we did one together before my diagnosis, I refused to do another one and be labeled ‘survivor’. I didn’t see the pink shirt as a badge of honor, but as a painful reminder of all that I had lost, of how I was ‘different’ from all the ‘normal’ people. Now, even more years later, breast cancer has faded comfortably into the archives of my thoughts. It isn’t something I try to hide – I have established myself as one of the ‘normal’ people again. On my yearly trips to the oncologist I watch the newly bald and remember when that was me – when I looked longingly at the women with long flowing hair and wondered what they were doing in the waiting room. Back then I couldn’t imagine a day when cancer would not be the big black smudge ruining the life I always wanted.
The truth is I never wanted to give breast cancer power. I never wanted to acknowledge that it was a big deal. I wanted to treat it as a minor inconvenience in the course of my life so that I didn’t have to think about the truth. And the reality is that while breast cancer and its aftermath have so far accounted for the hardest things in my life, they have only been a minor inconvenience compared to what cancer does to so many families. Many times I have said that if I had known that the windy road of my life would take me through breast cancer so that I could reach true love and Brendan – I would have happily submitted to the immediate pain. And I would do it again.
I recently heard the phrase, ‘Praise the bridge that carried you over’. I realized that while I don’t have to praise cancer itself, I can and should acknowledge the bridge that it was in my life. I never let it hold the transformative power that so many inspiring survivors exhibit, but it did change me. Even without Rob, and without Brendan, I would still see more of the beauty in life because of where I have been. And every day I strive to appreciate and be thankful for my life in it’s totality – for every beautiful moment. Even the days that don’t feel beautiful at the time.
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I don’t imagine ever comfortably embracing the label, ‘survivor’, but I intend to praise the bridge that carried me over, and allow it to hold the power it deserves. And now that October is past, and all the pink products are on sale, and the football players have stopped wearing their pink shoes, and the signs for donations at the supermarkets are all coming down – I am going to do more than give a dollar as I pay for my groceries. The Susan G Komen foundation is finding a cure, and I want to help them. It’s not going to become ‘my cause’, there are other needs that tug more heavily at my heartstrings. And I’m not going to ask people to join me – this is my bridge. I hope I don’t stop here. I hope I can find ways to acknowledge this bridge and others – to come to peace with it, embrace it as part of me as I honor its transformative power in helping me become the person I was meant to be, and the person I am still becoming.