After spending 6 hours with wonderful people from Churches from all over Miami Dade County and medical professionals in a Facilitator training for Cancer Support Group, sponsored by the Baptist Hospital Congregational Health, life looks richer and richer as we discover new simple ways to be useful to others, and to ourselves. Cancer is a big monster for many families. I grew up seeing family members and friends being diagnosticated with cancer and more than an announcement it was a sentence, a death sentence. My dad died from cancer, he had it all, prostate, lung, bone.....He fought for five years. For some years after that, Cancer continued to be a death sentence, until a lady thatre." I knew proved me wrong. She went through all the process, surgery, chemo, I think more surgery and more treatments, she started using some weird wigs and big black sunglasses, she would take forever walking from her car to her office. It was painful just to watch. She was in her sixties but with a much younger spirit, but for those few months her light wasn't as bright, she was fighting but it was hard. A woman of great Catholic faith, you could tell just by visiting with her for few minutes that she was a good person, a good christian. Back in those days was the Virgen of Conyers in Georgia, she went to see the Virgen, she told me that she wasn't looking for a miracle but for an answer, her question was "Am I going to survive?". She had a gold crucifix that she put in, partially, in some water in Conyers then she put it back in her neck, days later her husband asked her what she did with the crucifix because half of it it is now pink, she was so surprised, but for some reason she remembered the question that got her to Conyers and the meaning of the change in the crucifix. At that moment she knew that she she would survive. And she did.
When my time came, I was 27 years old and my perception of the cancer was not longer so terrible, I knew that medicine has gone a long way since my father's time, so I was more confident in a happy ending. I can say that I had the support of my family, my in-laws, my mother, my boss, of course my wife. The doctors, nurses, hospital personnel. I remember a day that I had to bring a copayment before the surgery and the lady in the office with tears in her eyes offer me to pray with me. I was really touched by that gesture.
So it was like people all around me were protecting me and helping me. I have a hard time finding the pain in my experience, other than physical pain there was not a moment of anguish or despair. I was in good hands and I knew it.
Eleven years later, my story has matured in my mind, something grew inside of me out of that Cancer experience, sometimes I have seriously considered suggest to a friend to get Cancer, so his world can be put in perspective, but so far I have kept quiet with that suggestion. Being a Cancer survivor, no matter the specifics, give us a upper hand when dealing with catastrophic events. For sure our families have experienced the idea of "us not being there" and when you make peace with the changes in the world you become a more useful member of the Universe.
WHAT CANCER CANNOT DO
Cancer is so limited...
it cannot cripple love
it cannot shatter hope.
it cannot corrode faith
it cannot eat away peace
i cannot destroy confidence
it cannot kill friendship
it cannot shut our memories
it cannot silence courage
it cannot invade the soul
it cannot reduce eternal life
it cannot quench the Spirit
it cannot lessen the power of the resurrection
Anonymous
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