Last week I was flew to Colorado to be with my mom. She was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, completed six months of chemotherapy, and then last week had surgery to remove what was left of the tumor and some lymph nodes. The surgery went as planned, and we’re currently awaiting results from pathology. Hopefully everything comes back clear and she can move on to the next phase, which is five weeks of radiation.
I could write all day about my mom and how incredible she is, but instead I’ll focus on just two qualities of hers that stand out and have carried her so gracefully through this journey so far. The first is her clear perspective.
“It isn’t the things that are happening to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening.” — Pema Chodron
My mom isn’t in denial about or ignoring reality, even in the most raw, scary, and painful moments. Most would agree that at least some parts of undergoing chemotherapy really suck, but I’ll be damned if my mom hasn’t made a new friend and found some way to crack herself (and those around her) up at every single one on the dozens of appointments she’s had over the past seven months. These are the moments she would share with me first when we talked on the phone each evening. These are the parts of her day that stood out to her most. She continues to find inspiration from and is invigorated by the changes this journey is bringing to her life. And while I happen to think my mom is pretty extraordinary, she’s really just like the rest of us. She doesn’t have anything within her that we don’t all have. We are each capable of such clear perspective that sees both the light and dark in every situation.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” — Rumi
Along with her grounded perspective, my mom has immeasurable courage. When I tell her, “Mom, you are so inspiring, and tough, and courageous!” She’s like, “What are you talking about? I’m just going to my appointments.” A typical day for my mom goes something like this: She wakes up on the floor where she has spent the night sleeping with and comforting her 13-year-old dog who is covered in tumors, dying of cancer, and has to be taken out to go to the bathroom at least three times each night. She looks at her eyebrows, eyelashes, swollen face in the mirror, and takes a handful of pills before cooking, cleaning, and taking care of my brother and her husband. She takes herself to all of her appointments, and while she’s sitting there for eight straight hours with a frozen scalp, hands, and feet (there’s some new ice cap technology out that is claims to help chemotherapy patients keep at least some of their hair if they wear this cap that is pumped with sub-zero temperature water, and my mom read somewhere that submerging your hands and feet in ice water during treatment may help prevent neuropathy — loss of feeling in the hands and feet — which is one of the potentially permanent side effects of chemotherapy, so she brings in tubs for ice water every session) getting toxic stuff pumped into her veins, she serves as a mentor and cheerleader for whomever is placed in the room with her that day, makes friends, bring in food for her nurses, laughs… So yeah, she’s “just going to her appointments.”
Courage is defined as:
- the ability to do something that frightens one; strength in the face of pain or grief
- the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather having the fear, feeling the pain, and choosing to act anyway because you must.
Life takes courage. Even on an average day, when you’re not dealign with something like cancer, life takes courage. It takes serious courage to show up, be present, feel fully, be willing to look, really see, and go out into the world. We each have a bottomless well of courage.
“You can rest assured that when you act from true courage, the people, the tools, and your own inner knowing — all that is needed for the heroine’s journey — will be available to you.” — Judith Hanson Lasater, Living Your Yoga
Krystal Barschig 