This is my year to celebrate life and living. This is the year when I will pass the age at which my mother died of breast cancer 42 years ago.
It started with a gathering of women crafters back in January. It was just meant to be a weekend to knit, but turned into a spiritual gathering allowing us to come together and share our strengths, our joys, and our sorrows. It felt like the perfect centering that I needed. I was still working as a special education teacher in an elementary school and hurting in my role there. I felt myself being part of the system that I’d always fought against, a system that drags children kicking and screaming from childhood and sends them off to prisons and poverty. I couldn’t face myself walking down the halls each morning. That gathering of women and the space to ground myself gave me the little push I needed to move forward. I said goodbye to the elementary school and by the end of February I was working in early childhood care. It was somewhere I never expected to be again, but it gives me that chance to rock the little ones and play and remind myself of what is important in life again.
Mother’s Day brought another celebration of my life and my mom’s. I got my first tattoo, a sugar maple tree of life, with my inner child swinging in its branches, a golden heart on its trunk to remember all those who’ve walked on, and hills and water to remind me of who I am and why I am here. I look at it each day and am reminded of purpose and of joy.
In June I was thinking about summer and getting together with family to celebrate Mom’s anniversary of death and her birthday. It felt important to acknowledge this year as all my siblings and I are now living beyond her years. I decided then to do something that would change and deepen my year of celebration and honoring of her life and mine. I got my mammogram. I had cancer.
Tomorrow would be Mom’s 97th birthday. It’s also the day of my mastectomy. I hadn’t planned it that way. It was just the day that the surgeon offered and I took it, not realizing in the moment the connection. Now, I am so thankful that my surgery is happening on Mom’s birthday. It feels like a good omen. I can feel her arms around me and sense her spirit watching over me. It feels like the right gift to honor her life, doing this surgery that will, hopefully, help me and allow me to someday celebrate my 97th year. It is strange how life happens and the gifts we’re given.
