I don’t go to fireworks on the fourth of July. They’ve always come to me. Over the years, by some awful coincidence, Independence Day is when my mother died; my father died; my husband and I told our kids we were separating and he was moving out; and I got my cancer diagnosis. [...]
He was on his knees, his hands deep in dirt when I arrived for a visit. Proudly he showed me around the garden he’d planted in his Los Angeles backyard—-lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, even grapes, he told me, his face lit up with happiness. I wasn’t used to seeing him outside; he was so frail and [...]
Sometimes you just can’t miss those signs from the universe—-when they’re waving in your face. It wasn’t only because yesterday was National Cancer Survivor’s Day. Or that the day before that, I saw a friend who just learned she has a recurrence of breast cancer— after 11 years. It has to be a sign that [...]
She never signed up for this…… She was 17, trying to escape problems with her mom, when she ran away—to the home of a family member, hundreds of miles away. A few weeks later, her father arrived to make peace and bring her home for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, they boarded a plane together to [...]
It’s not something you see every day…..but this is an attitude about cancer I appreciate. So I had to meet the person walking around with this sign attached to her back. The purple T- shirt is the clue that she’s a survivor—attending the Relay for Life at Monterey Peninsula College. Maria Robb is a mail [...]
…..“an otherwise mainstream mother and wife….transformed from a person who believed only in the visible and the proven to someone open to the idea of larger, unseen forces.” Those words describe Hope Edelman, author of a new book, The Possibility of Everything; but they also could have described me—another skeptical Jewish girl from the east [...]
It’s just a door; a storefront in a row of shops. You’d never guess that on the other side of the door was something that could help save a life. I first saw the blue door 13 years ago—after a year immersed in cancer—- five surgeries, two chemotherapy courses, and radiation. Though I was done [...]
For the children most of us know, life is easy—- at least compared to the life of a Haitian orphan or Sudanese refugee. Still, an easy life doesn’t mean an escape from emotional pain. Stuff happens, usually things parents never sign up for. That’s what happened to a young mother whose husband is going through [...]
I realize you can’t really equate having cancer with having a baby (although they both cause you to end up sleepless)… but stick with me before you dismiss this as just a bad analogy. Breast cancer survivors compare stories like mothers compare stories of childbirth. Instead of centimeters dilated, we talk centimeters of tumors. If [...]
In the midst of celebrating Christmas with V’s family, I couldn’t help thinking about her— wondering how she felt giving and getting presents, when the only gift she really wants is something no one can give her. I know what was in her heart on Christmas; and will be in her heart every day from [...]
