STEPPING DOWN: THIS DECADE OF MINE

It began with Roy William, beloved brother to my Mother, dead at 20 of lymphosarcoma; the Uncle I never knew but heard about all my life. Grandpa, who sat me on his lap and entertained by putting olives on all ten fingers, was my first funeral at five years old, brain tumor. And Aunt Sylvia whose matter of fact sharing of her “different bra” and what that meant in an era of silence. Then Aunt Billie whose lungs were riddled with cancer and Grandma, whose pain from colon cancer lasted a terrifying three years. 

I grew up, life passed. Then the impact hit home again as body parts disappeared; my husband’s kidney in 1988, my sister’s entire lower jaw in 1992, my Mother’s breast in 1998. Fortune smiled, survivorship, unnamed but welcome, reigned in our lives. It would be after retiring from work life and encountering the LIVESTRONG Foundation before I truly began to understand “Cancer may leave your body, but it never leaves your life."

It is always dangerous to try to assess something that is not quite over. In 2004, wandering through retirement and wondering which on the list of my fifty great volunteer ideas I should choose, the LIVESTRONG Foundation gently intruded. So much for my list. But finding my passion more than made up for the unexpected detour. I became a LIVESTRONG volunteer; a LIVESTRONG Leader and then Senior Leader to be exact. Positions from which I am stepping down on March 31.

Now, after a decade of attending LIVESTRONG Summits, becoming a LIVESTRONG Leader and then a Senior Leader; participating in dozens and dozens of conferences, coalitions, committee meetings; reading and talking to anyone who cared about cancer; designing fliers and cards and notices and events, and always fundraising; here is what I know has been important. People.

For ten years the stories of cancer patients and their families have consumed my life. Many were LIVESTRONG Leaders themselves. Many were participants in what became our first and continuing local project, the Cancer Support Group. More than I can count are those who became Facebook friends because the cancer community tends to share stories, resources, triumphs and pain. And, most dear, are those who I met here in Lewiston because they had a need and I could help.

A cancer diagnosis when you live in a rural community often means fewer options for treatment; perhaps traveling many hundreds of miles for treatment; figuring out transportation when you can’t or shouldn’t drive, air travel is out of financial reach, friends and family can’t get away; arranging for long periods of time away from home, family and work for either local or distant treatment, recovery or travel; clinical trials too far away to be feasible; fewer support resources; fewer financial resources. In summary everything’s fewer, fewer, fewer and harder to access. The loneliness of a cancer diagnosis magnified.

It is their stories, successes and sometimes their loss, that will be with me forever. Each person, each story was unique like a quilting square. And like a quilting square, each story formed a piece of the larger pattern that became the encompassing base for my life. Each person, each story touched me in ways I never anticipated. And each motivated me to work harder and longer to see that their stories continued to matter.

My companion LIVESTRONG Leaders, hundreds scattered in all corners of the world, became a precious, treasured family. Both their stories and the stories they brought of others, became the oxygen in my air, the soil for my growth, the energy for my work.

While I'm not leaving the field, just changing where I fall in the lineup, now is a point of summing up. This decade of mine has meant the sadness and pain of loss, the joy of group support and caring, the shared determination of cancer fighters and the elation of each individual's personal triumph. This decade of mine has brought love and friendship unimaginable before my venture in LIVESTRONG. This decade of mine has meant stories in which I will find comfort and meaning as long as I live and love. May the next decade offer as much reward.

This blog is dedicated to Ty Wakefield and Courtney Clifford - the first two young adult cancer fighters I encountered on my LIVESTRONG path. Both were lost very young. Both had an impact that not only went far beyond their years, but continues to this day.

Perhaps

I get it. I really do. When you are famous your death makes waves. And if the cause of that death is the current illness du jour, cancer, then the numbers who identify are literally millions. Yet once my shock and sadness at a safe distance are sated, the appropriate Facebook meme posted, I always wonder about the other deaths that occurred that day. More numerous, but mostly unseen; grieved only by close family and friends.

Does the size of the grieving circle say anything at all? It's is hard to believe anyone would say that one life, one death was more important than any other. So can we just celebrate that our reaction to the famous makes us widely compassionate? Or does that reaction obscure those deaths closer to home that go unnoticed?

Perhaps our willingness to look at a famous death makes us more compassionate for the unseen deaths that surround us.

Perhaps our willingness to look at famous death makes us consider our own mortality more closely and honestly.

Perhaps that is enough.

"HELLO, IT'S ME."

Thanks Adele for the title and the comeback example. Me too.

I began this blog in 2007 because I genuinely like writing and I inevitably, perhaps endlessly, have 'stuff' to say. Being both opinionated and ruminative, the blog filled a space in my world that was at once outlet, reflection and battle cry. My sole New Year's resolution for 2016 is resuscitate this blog. Plus, my mind really does meander and it seemed time for a bit of discipline.

So Hello, It's Me. When last we spoke my life was consumed by the decline and eventual death of my Mother. It was a drawn out and painful chapter about which I will eventually write - later. Today, on a long and chilly walk, I paused to consider my place in the family. In particular the oddness of being the oldest living member of my birth family.

My sisters and I recognized at my Mother's death the common insight that there is no longer an "older generation" between us and our death. I don't think any of us were particularly troubled by this inescapable fact of life. And, yes, I have always realized I was the oldest sibling; advantage of which I have sometimes taken to my sisters' distress. Yet somehow today, having recently celebrated my 68th birthday, I have suddenly been struck by the fact that not only is there no generation in front of me, but that I am the oldest living member of my birth family.

This recognition was followed by both wonderment (wow, I really got here) and discomfort (wow, I really am here) and not a little of confusion (wow, how am I suppose to feel/act about this).

And that is probably about right; pleased and amazed to be here, awed by everything around me, waiting for the other shoe to drop and often uncertain how to behave but showing a good face. The story of my life in a nutshell.

I hope you all will stick with me on what is sure to be a peripatetic journey. Feel free to read older entries (I did before I wrote today) and comments are always welcome.