Happy Anniversary...?

So…about this blog. I have no idea if anyone is interested to read anything I have to say. I struggled coming up with a title for it. Life Lessons, Eternal Optimist, Something-or-other about Hope, blah. Regardless if anyone will read it, I find writing to be extremely cathartic. But if people do read it, I hope they can relate to, or are encouraged by, some of the things I’ve shared here. My constant prayer is that God will continue to use me, especially in the hard stuff.

Tomorrow, March 9, I will be three years cancer-free. Yay, right? Hashtag congratulations to me! A reason to celebrate! But you know what else it is? The anniversary of the day my mom passed away. Talk about a juxtaposition...

When you’re a cancer survivor, every day of every month of every year that you are cancer free bears celebrating. But what about when it shares the day with the most profound grief you have ever experienced? And what do you call it when you want to recognize the day? We’re having a Mom-died-a-year-ago-and-Donna's-cancer-free-anniversary/party? What?

Don’t you feel that way about many events in your life? The good with the bad, positive with the negative, and so on. I took an online test a few years back that “defines” your strengths; guess what my number one is? Positivity. Not a huge surprise to those that know me well. It may sound like an attribute, but guess what? Sometimes it’s really hard. Always looking for good in something that may just simply suck. And let’s be honest. Sometimes things just suck and it would be nice to just be able to declare it, right?

Here’s what I’ve learned: in my experience, even in the worst and hardest and most painful of circumstances there truly IS goodness and hope. I don’t believe that God gave me cancer, but I believe that he allowed it to happen because he knew who I would become as a result of it. He knew that he would make me brave and strong. That he would show me what grace is. He would give me boldness and courage to minister to people that are hurting. That his relentless pursuit of me would finally, gently, steadily draw me to the deep well that is the bottomless source of hope. Him.

The last few years of Mom’s life were HARD. Her last month on the earth was excruciating. She was in pain, constantly; in a hospital bed 24/7 except when she tried to get up, unsuccessfully, using every ounce of strength and resolve she could find. She was only allowed to eat pureed food and thickened liquids. And we did what humans that love do; we cheered her on, encouraged her…and failed to see the fact that she was doing it for us. Until she no longer could. But I believe in the end she dared to hope for something beyond leaving a family that loved her, but that also included a world of indescribable pain, legs that no longer worked and a body that wouldn’t cooperate with the life she wanted to live. I think she hoped for something better. And if she could hope for that, so can I. That it (whatever our “it” is), is never the end of the story.

Tomorrow night our family will gather to remember the last day we had with Mom. We will toast to the life she lived, the life she loved, and the life she gave. And it will be a party...even if we don’t know what to call it.