A Journey of Love

...I have Cancer...

I have cancer.  How do you tell people?  "how are you? Me? I'm great, but I have cancer." How do you tell someone you barely know? How do you tell someone you've known your whole life?

I have cancer.  Not all cancer is created equal.  It's not the ovarian cancer that killed my mom, but it comes from the same mutated gene, the only thing her sperm donor father left behind. How do you tell those family and friends who were traumatized by her suffering and loss that her daughter now has a similar battle ahead of her?

I have cancer. How do you tell your motherless-daughter friend who has shared your fears and has healed with her daughter like you have with yours?  How do you share that the breast that fed your daughter has been invaded by a traitor ready to fight you?

I have cancer.  How do you give comfort to those who don't know what to say when faced with their own mortality by fearing yours?

...I have cancer...

Earlier this week, I received the call that I had known for years was a real possibility, and I always feared.  "you do have a form of breast cancer." I scrambled to grab my list of questions and scrolled down to the "If it's cancer..." section.  We didn't have answers to those questions yet.  I didn't cry, not until I said those three words out loud for the first time. "I have cancer." I whispered.  I allowed myself those tears of fear.  Then, I let it go.  

I have this inexplicable feeling.  Everything is going to be ok.  I don't know how I know this, I just do.  It's sort of the same way, before those test results came back I knew this tumor was cancer.  I just knew.  I am scared.  Of course I am scared of the Big C that's not welcome in this C-Club.  But I'm ready to embark on this journey of love ahead of me.  

That is what I have found this to be, a journey of love.  I know the challenges an illness like this brings.  I am not blind to this at all.  I've seen it first hand, but I also know the love it brings. It brings a love  that endures "in sickness and in health." It brings old friends who are ready to add this to the list of challenges and joys they have shared with me.  It brings new friends who are ready to bond with me on whatever level I will let them.  It brings family together to ensure that I don't have to be that reasonable rock I have always been if I don't want to. It brings the strength of the women who endured before me, willing to share their stories, their advice and their warm embraces.  It brings my mom's love that surrounds me and never leaves me. It brings the joy, the hope and the love in my daughters eyes which inspire me day in and day out.  

Yes, I have cancer, but that is just another way of saying I am embarking on a journey of love.