This is part 3 of a 3-part talk I gave for the Breast Cancer Coalition of Rochester's event, Lives Touched, Lives Celebrated. Part 1 is about hope, and Part 2 is about healing.
Celebration
Hope, healing, and celebration. My story is laced with these words – and yes, also with their opposites. I know I don’t have to tell you that cancer brings out all of the emotions, sometimes simultaneously. During my experience with cancer, I have had some of my highest highs, and my lowest lows, and their being so intertwined made them all the lower and all the higher!
I have felt the despair and grief one feels with the recognition of losing something that was so important to you (whether that is a breast, or a lifelong dream, or a way of life that you previously enjoyed)… And, I have felt the hope that comes with knowing the strength of the community around you, and the deep knowledge that none of them will let you fall, but that if you do still fall, they will be there with you, even down in the gutter, letting you cry, and then getting you a glass of water to replenish your tears.
I have felt the anguish of waiting for results, and of making impossible decisions, and of not knowing what thing is the right thing to do, and of looking at yourself in the mirror for the first time after surgery and being repulsed by what you see… And I have felt the sweet relief of being on the other side, and feeling my broken body and my broken heart start to come back together, of finally hearing, “Scan and blood work were all clear – see you in a year!”
I have felt the fear of not knowing how things would turn out. I felt the anger that cancer would happen to me – again, and again. I felt how difficult it was to pray, and to stand up each week and tell other people about God’s love and grace, even when I didn’t always feel like I was experiencing it myself… And, I smiled broadly, and I fell in love with my nurses and doctors, and invited them to my wedding, and gave thanks every day for another day of love and life and joy and grace. I witnessed the incredible ways that those deaths I was experiencing in my life were turning into opportunities, how relationships blossomed and grew in ways they never would have otherwise. I rejoiced in the warm, strong arms of my beloved, and in the frequent phone calls from my parents in California, and the notes I received from strangers who were thinking about me. I gave thanks for the many circles of prayer in which I was held.
In short: in the midst of all those dark emotions, I also experienced celebration. I looked out from the darkness of all that loss and fear and anger and uncertainty, and found in each of them that there was always something there to dispel that darkness.
Here is what I have learned: sometimes celebration is balloons and cake, but the much more profound celebrations are the ones we wrest out of the hands of struggle. Because these celebrations are all the sweeter precisely because they have been hard-earned, and we have seen the opposite and said to its face, “No, you cannot take my joy. You cannot take my life.”
And so I celebrate. I continue to live in hope – that light will shine in the darkness, that small gestures can break apart even the hardest of despair, that empathy heals all manner of ill. I continue to heal – recognizing that healing comes in all sorts of forms, sometimes of the body, sometimes of the spirit, and accepting that it sometimes hurts a bit to heal, and that’s okay.
But most of all, I celebrate. I celebrate so many brave women and men who have faced this mess that is cancer, and not let it crush them. I celebrate the gifts I have gained from the experience, the depth I have grown, the ways I have experienced life even when death looked me in the face. I celebrate love – the love of my people, my village, and a God who never left my side.
The three words that structure this event are cyclical. We hope. We heal. We celebrate. We find years later that we fall back into a need to heal. We grasp once again to look for hope. And then we are given little gifts to celebrate. Rinse and repeat. One does not negate another; indeed these beautiful words only serve to enhance each other.
Tonight, I celebrate, but most of all, I am grateful – grateful to see so many beautiful survivors and caretakers. Grateful for the hope you have shown just by being here. Grateful for the ways you have shown others how to heal, even as you are just figuring it out yourself. Grateful for opportunities to celebrate all these things. Thank you. Thank you for being a light in the darkness. Thank you for being an inspiration. Thank you to you, and thank you for you.
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