The 365th Day

Exactly one year ago today, I was told that I had an aggressive form of breast cancer   It was the worst day of my life.   Even worse days came after that, and you can all read the history of this blog to get the detail, but today I sit here, reflecting on this past year overlooking birds and palm trees, and the color and the beauty of life. And I feel lucky. 

Lucky to have the love for life so alert and awakened within this less than perfect body of mine. Lucky to understand, deeply, what is means to be supremely happy.  Lucky to have this person in my life, this extraordinary human being, who has been by my side throughout all of this, watching as the script unfolded in the darkest days.  Helpless to change the course of events.  Never have I seen so much grace embodied in one human being.  He, never once complaining about the tragedy, the unfairness, the inhumanity of it all.  Me, struggling each day to respect and accept the odds that have been placed in front of me.  .

The odds are good, but the uncertainty lingers, as it will for years to come, like a sword of Damocles.  Ever present, even though it can be pushed down and escape the mind for hours or a day.  It always returns.  The precariousness of life.  The impending death that all of us must experience.  Forgotten for a period, it flashes back into the mind like a line of lightening from the center of your soul. Even at the happiest times, the mind remembers.  And the crowd and the party swirling around you, gloriously oblivious to it all.  I envy them.  I am no better than them. Just profoundly different.  The colors in my life are so much brighter, the air is so much more sweet, the change of seasons so much more beautiful to me than ever before. 

What transpired a year ago today, in the fall crisp weather – my favorite time of year – through crunching leaves and sadness, was that my life was forever changed.  The winter that followed was brutal.  A blizzard followed by months of putting on a good face.  Surgery.  Chemotherapy. More surgery.  Radiation.  The radiation was the hardest.  The final two miles in a marathon of treatments where you don’t know if the finish line is a mirage or if it’s there, two years out in the distance.  Radiation, every single day for 33 days, where technicians with names like Cindy and Will, kids right out of school, prop you on a table and leave you alone in room to think about the hand you have been dealt. 

There were bursts of happiness this past year. The promise of a life together in the middle of the night from a sparklingly lit side canal in Holland.  New family members born.  Weddings attended and new friends made.  I am continually awed by the amazingness of the people in my life.  And how many more of them appear seemingly from nowhere. People and personalities and histories and passions.  There is so much of it to drink up and savor and admire.  .

After 365 days, I realize that I am truly happy.  Happier than I have ever been in my life.