So many things have happened over the last few days and I want to share them all with you. I cannot figure out how to put them all in one blog post, at least not one that would make any sense. So I think I will break them up so you will be able to follow along with my adventure.

I started off my day with radiation. Last Thursday my beautiful friend Beth gave me four cards, one for each of the days I had left of radiation. It was a very touching gesture and it brought tears to my eyes. You see, Beth’s friends had done the same thing for her. She had 36 cards, numbered 1-36 so each day she would read the card right before treatment. She told me how much the cards meant to her. So for her to do this for me was meaningful for her and for me, since she would not be there for my last four treatments.

So far I have read the first two, and I am amazed at how much this person understands about me. Today’s card was so wonderful that I want to share a little bit of it with you. Beth, I hope you do not mind. In the card, she included Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early, a beautiful poem that expresses all the thoughts and feelings I have about nature. In the card, she wrote, “You are brave, and wounded, and strong, and broken . . . forever changed, but okay. And if I had to guess, you are probably smiling with tears in your eyes!”

Funny – I can hardly type this because I am crying right now. Wow – she is so right. Brave, strong, yet wounded and broken. How can one person be all those things? It has been difficult for me to grasp this dichotomy within myself. But really, you cannot be one if you have not felt the other. How can you be brave if you have never been wounded? How can you be strong if you have never been broken?

Life is so hard sometimes, and I face it with armor engaged. But beneath that armor is a wounded child trying to make her way in this world. I think it has been this experience with cancer that has opened me up enough to see that I can be all those things, and that it is okay. It is part of being human. It is okay to really let people in and let them know the real me. Even with all the scars and broken pieces, I am worthy of love. I want to thank each one of you for sharing my journey with me and for loving me and supporting me.

Another lesson this cancer journey has brought home to me is the fact that no one gets out of this world alive. I am blessed; both of my parents are still living and I cannot image this world without them in it. I found out this weekend that a family friend had died. It is so hard for me to believe. I grew up playing with this man’s daughters; we grew up in the country and lived across the road from each other. We rode horses and bikes and played outside together all summer. Mr. JL would have reminded you of the Marlboro Man. He worked at the post office but also farmed. In the summer he would wear a blue cowboy shirt with the arms cut off, jeans, cowboy boots, and a straw cowboy hat. He always had a huge plug of tobacco in his cheek. Dark skin, dark hair, and a great smile. That is the way I want to remember him. It is so difficult watching people age. They are supposed to stay exactly as I remember them from my childhood. It is always a shock to my system to see how time changes my childhood heroes.

As I have said before, each day, each second is a moment I want to cherish. Time passes too quickly and in the blink of an eye it is over. Live every moment as if it were your last.