I may or may not still have a full unpacked suitcase from our Sun Valley Christmas vacation, just staring at me. Actually that's a lie. Its covered in mounds of clean clothes, folded neatly, waiting to be placed in my closet.
It's a disaster to say the least, and it's driving not only my doggies, and my mom wild, but it's actually starting to get to me myself! Hmm. weird.
That's when you know it's bad.
But as I started my maid service job of cleaning, my mind would not leave me me alone about all this talk of cancer I've heard lately. Whether it be through FB and trying to get the word out about Breast Cancer awareness, or maybe it was the lady who's hair I did this week who is battling Breast Cancer currently.
I had no other choice than to set down my clothes, stop what I was doing, and go tell my mother how much I love her, and am so grateful she survived Breast Cancer, and is still alive to be my mother today.
I'm overwhelmed right now, in the most random and thankful way.
So incredibly grateful I have such a beautiful example of a fighter in my life.
Such a perfect mother.
She'll never know how much her example has affected how I will raise my children one day.
How badly I want to be as strong as she is.
I know October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, but quite frankly, why in the world do we just take one month out of 12 to raise awareness??
This is something that needs to be shared with everyone, every day, of every month.
I'm going to do my part in sharing my story.
Making you aware.
Aware of how real this really is...
A few years ago I had the opportunity to do a shoot with my sweet mother. A very humbling and sensitive shoot. I wanted to be able to show the deep scars that now live on my mothers breasts. The incisions of such tools that destroyed the cancer itself. To show the beauty of them. And how they only portray signs of her power, and her victory.
Scars are so beautiful.
I was also given the opportunity to write and express my unique story of my mothers journey through my eyes. And to have it published in a selling book.
I ask that you take just a few minutes to read my experience. My words. Whether it be to give you hope, give someone else hope, comfort you, help you relate, know that there are so many in this world suffering from this pandemic. That you're not alone. And that it is so important that we take all the precautions we can, in our health and in detection of Cancer. And to most importantly, not forget to share our love with those around us,
because life can be attacked all too quickly. And it may be too late.
I love you Mom.
You're my hero.
This is for you.
Flowers Can Always Bloom in the Trampled Dirt Patches
This world is sheltered by people. Millions. All painted in a peculiar and particular tactic. All diverse. Extraordinary, astonishing people are the rarest breed found, where as bare, normal people are the most common. I happen to know one of those astonishing rare people. There is a person in my life, a hero, my seraph. I’ve known this amazing individual from the day I was brought into this world nineteen years ago. She shared the marvel of my first gasp of breath. I’ve grown in her presence my whole life, shared desolate, melancholy tears, blissful, joyful tears, screamed the pains that tore our hearts, smiled through the rough times, and laughed throughout the memories that stain the past gone by. To be someone so divine, there has to be extremity in one’s life, astounding, quandary circumstances. She stands out in my mind because of how strong she is, mentally and physically. I compare her to a diamond, unbreakable. You can throw anything you want at a diamond, even throw it to the ground, but it does no good to waste your time trying, because it can only be broken by another diamond. My mother is just like a diamond, throw all you want at her, all the challenges, trials, drop her on her back and tread heavily on her, but nothing will break her unless she decides to break herself. And she has never, nor will ever be broken, she is resilient.
Ten years ago my mom saw death eating her body silently. But death had not just been born, it’d been living, terrorizing her body for years unknown. A silent killer. Within weeks she was bedridden, poison igniting her veins, killing everything it could, wispy handfuls of hair would fall from her cold head, White chapped lips bled from the cracks, vomit left her body as frequent as breath did. Her breasts were gone. They had to go. The doctors had no choice. My sweet mother, who weeks before was thriving, smiling, laughing, living, now was slipping, shivering, dying. Breast cancer had found its next victim.
The tubes protruding from my mother’s body, the open wounds, the prickly stitches, the unfamiliarity I felt, the confused, scared bewilderment that agonized my ten year old mind has shaped my life drastically to this day. Why my mother? Why couldn’t I understand? How much longer till she died? Why did God chose to watch his children suffer? These questions attacked my mind.
She never gave up, knife after knife, tool after tool, taken to her tender skin, she never gave up. Death had to be so infuriated that it wasn’t winning. I guarantee death has never had a victim fight back so rigorously like my mother did. She taught me that. To never back down. We were given this specific life for a reason. The struggles, the challenges, the pains, all for a reason. Sometimes we don’t know that reason, but we fight through them anyway. Learn from them, help others in your same position along the way, and most importantly, grow from them, build your character, your civil uniqueness. Don’t cry about it. Don’t make people feel sorry for you, because they are all going to die at some point in life too. We all are. So just live, fight and prevail.
My life was changed from that very second my ten year old brain could comprehend what was destroying my mother. Though she wasn’t fully aware all of the time, always in a bit of a fog, drugged up and weak, she taught me everything I am today, sometimes it’s the quiet moments when shaking bodies hold each other, where you learn the most valuable lessons . . . to have faith, to take the life that is given to you, and live it to its greatest potential. We as individuals are the only ones determining our fate. She taught me to vigor. She taught me to not let anyone or anything drag me down. I can’t remember how many times during those painful tearstained years she would tell me to stand tall, be who I am, and not let the world tell me who to be. I used to be afraid, but she taught me that we can’t live life being afraid, we can’t be strong when we are afraid. In a world focused on image, cancer destroys every external, beautiful characteristic upon you. But she felt beautiful. She acted as if she were beautiful, and taught me to never judge someone by their shell, never to fall into this worldly world. Don’t hide your life under costly apparel, makeup, or enhancing surgeries, wear your struggles on your skin, that is really what makes you beautiful. She didn’t look normal by any means, people stared and gawked, but I walked beside her, proud. Those scars only portrayed strength, a pure, true fighter.
This piece of paper which you hold, and the ink that stains it, can’t even begin to help you understand how something so vile, has created everything about who I am today. Quite frankly, I would like to thank breast cancer. Thank you for trying to ruin my mother’s life and everyone’s life around her, because you failed, and we are the ones who get to stand tall, tattered, broken, but that much more unconquerable. That was another thing my mom taught me, see the list goes on, she taught me to take your struggles, your enemies, your fears, and turn them into something positive. There truly is always something to be happy about in any struggling situation, something to be learned. And there is always that green, green grass on the other side of the fence, but you can’t just sit at the fence and look longingly at the other side, wishing to be there, because you could be waiting at that fence your whole life. You have to make the grass you were given as green as you can, and walk upon it proudly, showing the world its unique beauty, allowing the ugly dirt patches to be seen, because it is in those ugly dirt patches where beautiful flowers can bloom.
