Wise words from my friend Shirley.
On the Sunday before the surgery, Corey and I had a cookout with my family and good friends Michelle and Shirley in the backyard. Our backyard has been the site of many happy times! Sunday was no different.
Shirley, Michelle, my daughter Ali, and I were sitting in the family room by the french doors when Ali looked at Michelle and they both teared up soon to followed by Shirley and myself. Shirley, who qualifies as an expert in this area, observed, "That's the thing about cancer, it doesn't just affect one person."
Cancer means that nothing in your life will ever be the same. When you hear the diagnosis - you know that in some way your vision of the future has shifted and nothing will ever look as it did or as it might have. You may walk the same path and see the same things that you saw yesterday but they just do not look the same. You drive the same places, pay the same bills, read the same magazines and except for the endless procedures and therapies, you are living in the same city and state as you did yesterday, but you know that nothing will ever be quite the same again.
For a while the road not taken has been mostly my choice. To paraphrase Robert Frost, I could peer down one path or another as far as I could see and choose the one that looked most fair. For now, I fear the path will be chosen for me, and "knowing how way leads on to way", I doubt I will be back to this great spot again.
Read Robert Frost's Complete Poem:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/frost_road.html
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tauon: an unstable lepton
ReplyDeletelepton: a subatomic particle
than: a conjuction that connects a comparison
Dear Ali,
ReplyDeleteWhat did the tauon leap on? Is than a conjucion or a conjunction?
Love, Mom
Nerds!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Penny,
ReplyDeleteIt's Kathy of e-LLC fame. Cancer is definitely not just about one person and it is a road I did not choose either, but here we are. Diagnosed in October 2007, Stage IIa, finished treatment in May 2008 and the chemo curls are still going strong.
There are days when I look in the mirror and long to be the woman I was but over time I have found the new woman, the woman who survived the endless hours in waiting rooms, surgery, chemo suites, and radiation treatments, the woman who on the first summer day says let the weeds grow, I am going for a hike, the laundry can wait, I am playing a game with my kids, the woman who is reconnecting with old friends and making new ones who share this unknown road. I found great comfort and healing in sharing my stories as you are with friends, family and my new friends and family.
All of my love, prayers, and support are yours.
Ooops, conjunction!
ReplyDelete