Today is National Cancer Survivor’s Day. I am just now realizing this and I suppose I should have done something fancy to celebrate it, like eat cake or something. But I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t think about cancer once today — well, until now. I’m 18 years-out since my skin tried to kill me and know that my melanoma could come back at anytime. But I could get hit by a car, too, or even hit by meteor — so I don’t dwell on it anymore (Lord knows I did when it first happened). So what did I do? I lived a normal Sunday. I got home at midnight last night from a wedding in Oxford (after driving up from the coast.) Pip woke me up at nine and I went to church. I prayed a little but not about my cancer. But I was thankful — something that I generally am since I heard those dreadful three words (You have cancer). When I got home, I did about three hours of yard work. Then I went to the lake and kayaked a bit. At one point, I stopped and enjoyed the sun going down. I sat out on the water and watched the golden light reflect over the lake’s ripples. I listened to the sound of a blue heron’s cry and the water lapping against my kayak. I bobbed up and down on the small waves and just felt grateful for being allowed to see something so gorgeous.
I’ve always felt a bit weird saying I am a cancer survivor because my treatment was pretty simple — cut half a grapefruit out of my back, a few lymph nodes out and 80 other moles and I’m good as new. But melanoma is particularly deadly and I’ve been treated like I’ve had cooties by some folks (like life insurance salesmen). I have lost friends to the disease and feel so fortunate my doctor caught it early enough for me to have a bonus 6,620 days.
I’ve watched my sons be born and grow up. And I’ve seen a few sunrises and sunsets along the way.
Like tonight.
I am grateful. But that’s something I should be every day. It shouldn’t have taken a few malignant melanocyte cells to make me appreciate’s life’s gift. But it did.
So I’ll rub my scar tonight and say a word of thanks and look forward to tomorrow.
Marshall, I love THESE words… “say a word of thanks and look forward to tomorrow”.
They are my mantra now, since I heard the three dreaded words last Fall.
Thankfully, I’ve been blessed by “THE GREAT MYSTERY”/Force/God/The Divine – to be of the nature to stop and watch the sunset, watch a hummingbird flit and magically pause, to smell the bream from the reservoir when the wind blows just right and to watch the pure joy on my granddaughter’s face when she rides her horse bareback into the lake at the barn.
I’m grateful for your sharing your gift of “a way with words”, your openness in sharing your vulnerability to “the cootie”, but most of all for giving me hope that I, too, may see another 6,620 days, and in the meantime relish each moment of each day.
(Tell Amy I said hello, give her my love and a hug, and tell her I think of her often.)