I have Cancer...

 I need to say 'I Have Cancer'
without everyone falling apart around me.

The day mom received her pancreatic cancer diagnosis was the most devastating imaginable...

It took weeks to even begin to wrap our minds around the horrific news, much less come to grips with the formidable foe mom faced.

Only the brave waded into our cancer fray those first weeks...emotions were raw and ugly...we were an unbalanced and frightening mess...

However, as the road unfurled and the music played on, mom found her footing and began the dance with cancer that would become her life.

One of the hardest things she faced was telling her friends and family, and even acquaintances, that she had cancer.  She hated how uncomfortable it made everyone... the downcast eyes...the pats on her shoulder...the unconscious way many treated her differently, with kid gloves, as if she had suddenly changed into this fragile, broken thing overnight...

And let me just say here, that I get it.  It is uncomfortable.  It's hard.  It is the extreme opposite of fun when you find out a loved one or friend has cancer.  What to say... what not to say.  It's all okay.  Mom understood that and loved each and everyone who reached out to her through-out the journey.

She just so often wanted to shout outloud, "I'm still me...we can talk, we can hug, we can laugh, we can cry...I haven't changed who I am, just the focus of my priorities right now."

She wanted to let everyone know that you can still snuggle with grandbabies when you have cancer...

 

And you can have a blast teaching your grandson the art of winning at Canasta...

 

You can enjoy nights out with the girls when you have cancer... 

 

And you can certainly celebrate anniversaries with the love of your life when you have cancer...

 

 

You can head for the beach when you have cancer...

 

 

And you can explore new places with loved ones when you have cancer...

 

And best of all, you can celebrate your favorite season of the year with grandchildren, yes, even when you have cancer...

These were mom's favorite times...when life took a "normal" turn and didn't revolve around the cancer.  She was still the same inside and out and never wanted to be treated any different.

And the truth is, honest, we all still fell apart around her at times.  The pain this cancer evokes is a nightmare.  There is no getting over that.  And mom wasn't living in a fairytale... she accepted the heartache we all felt and cried with us... but that is what life is...

...when the journey got rough, mom was still mom, and faced it more gracefully, more fiercely and more beautifully that we could ever have imagined...

"I Have Cancer, but that's not Who I Am."

 

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