Last weekend, I joined my first breast cancer walk as a breast cancer survivor. The walk was a gathering of several medical companies, surgeons and government agencies to raise awareness about breast cancer in our city. Before that event, I guested in several local television shows to talk about my recent bout with cancer treatment.
The thirty-minute walk culminated in a work out session which was facilitated by the local Department of Health. Once again, I could not help but stand aside in admiration at my co-survivors, my sisters-in-arms, and how they have all risen above their individual situations.
No doubt, the highlight of the day for me was meeting Mary Grace. She is a very young cancer survivor, only 24. As soon as she was inducted as a member of our organization, everyone just trooped to her and gave her a hug. She could not help but shed a few tears. And we could not help but choke back the tears for her, so young and supposedly yet, so full of dreams.
Meeting such a young survivor elicited such a myriad of thoughts and emotions from me...compassion for a very young woman, a teacher at that...love for the older survivors who wordlessly embraced her into their lives...a little fear for my own young daughter...vast thankfulness to God for the ocean of grace that has flowed in my life. I left that encounter a little more enriched in an unexpected way.
Cancer has intruded in all our lives, in the devastating and consuming way that only cancer can. To some degree, we have been robbed of our innocence towards death, but instead of becoming tainted everyone seems to have become more child-like in their faith, because of the experience.
Our message is clear: life can be fruitful, even while fighting cancer.
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