Stop to think about all the amazing, and courageous people you meet along the way?
Ever stop to reflect on how a person truly shaped your view on the world?
Who helped you become you?
I've had a lot of time these past three years to think about all the people in my life who have directly and indirectly affected me and shaped me into the person I am today. I wish I could take all the credit for knowing how to make a totally awesome person, but if I did - I would have copyrighted that bad boy and wrote the manual. Its safe to say though, there are so many people who do huge things, small things and nothing at all that shape who "we" are.
I've had to dig pretty deep at times over the past three years to keep myself together at times and it isn't easy fighting back tears and anger. You can't appreciate how insurmountable odds stacked against you can motivate you to not even want to get out of bed in the morning until you've been told things like "you probably won't make it" - "we only have two options left, and one of those is comfort care" - "it wouldn't be fair to him to repeat this procedure should it fail" and of course the worst of all, as I like to call it "the countdown"... (like im a space shuttle or something?)
I don't know many people personally fighting cancer, as a matter of fact - for all the time I've spent at The James, I didn't meet any surprisingly... but I do know one and one was enough for me to have a life changing - or as Oprah would call it "AH HA" moment. It wasn't cancer that brought us together either, it was a mutual appreciation and love for performing arts. The person I'm talking about was one of my high school band directors who I subsequently found out shortly after I left, was diagnosed with a, let us say ruthless, sarcoma.
It wasn't until after I was diagnosed that I reached out to her to talk - mainly because I was scared, and I felt like I was going through this journey alone with no one who could really relate. Watching my body waste away, my veins shrivel up, my appetite gone and my hair fall out made me feel so isolated I might as well have been on the moon. You can only hear "it's going to be okay" from those who love you so much, before it just becomes words...
Enter Stephanie...
The conversations we've had and the nights I've spent reading her blog entries put my own situation into perspective...
I could boil everything down into one simple word that you'll read right over but thats too simple - "pain" is cheating her journey. The surgeries, procedures, biopsies, chemotherapy, radiation and nausea alone with the massive emotional strain on her family/personal life, plus the financial sacrifices she, her husband and family have made, etc... is on a scale (you) I simply couldn't begin to comprehend... - and yet here I am sitting across from this woman who I equate to as The strongest person I have ever known (capital letter used correctly) and seeing her smile and just being grateful to be here in the moment with me was life changing.
I knew, from that moment on, I had only one mission on this journey - the same as hers...
To do what needed to be done, and use whatever means necessary to get to the finish line.
There are no excuses, no pity parties, no 'why me's', no simpathy - only fight. (while wearing a smile all the while)
I write this tonight, at 1:40am because I know, in a different time zone from and state from me, Stephanie s strength is being tested, maybe more than ever before. She probably doesn't even know she single-handedly showed me I can and will be strong, I can and will fight like hell and of course never - ever give up.
... and now it is my turn to return the favor.
What I can't stand more than bad things happening to good people, are bad things happening to amazing people. Stephanie is an amazing person and I am so lucky to know her. I hope she knows I always think of her and even though I'm not an overtly religious person, I am praying for her and sending her all the love I can.
She is my hero.
No comments:
Post a Comment