DOMINO EFFECT

After receiving the breast cancer diagnosis, I had to come home and tell my Mom. How do I repeat what was just said to me? Did I even understand what was said to me. Sometimes when I am in shock, I start crying, other times I start laughing. It’s strange I know.  So, I know I had a crazy look on my face as I was talking to the nurse. My emotions were somewhere between shock and delusional.  As the nurse was telling me my next steps, I heard “GOD TRUSTED ME WITH CANCER”.  This where this gets weird. The nurse didn’t say that, no one around me said it. It was like I had blacked out and had a flashback.  When I was teenager, beautiful woman that I went to church with, named Mrs. Von, was sharing her journey and experience with cancer and she said. “God trusted me with cancer.” I remember thinking she was crazy, but  I  also marveled at her beauty, her grace, her strength AND HER FAITH! She overcame many obstacles that people and science said that she would not. She lived a lot longer than her diagnosis said she would. That beautiful woman passed away over 25 years ago. Fast forward -  here  I am hearing her voice so clearly, as if she was in the room with me. 

NOW I GET IT! What I didn’t understand in my youth, I was getting a full teaching  at 44! GOD TRUSTED ME WITH CANCER. Let me be clear - I am not saying that God gave me cancer. I  am fully aware that NOT ONE THING happens in my life that God is not aware of or allows. Of course, there have been many things, including this, that I wish He did not allow, but I know that  everything that I have been through….EVERYTHING… has worked out for my good. Even as I type this and I think about some of the most dark and painful experiences that I lived through…I did just that. I LIVED! I MADE IT THROUGH IT! So, I was going to do the same thing with breast cancer. I made a decision in that moment that I WAS NOT GOING TO LET THIS DESTROY ME, mentally or spiritually.  What Mrs. Von, went through for many years - was now hitting me, but the impact that I felt , what she passed on was her FAITH!  A DOMINO EFFECT!

 Mrs. Von’s positive perspective taught me that it’s not about what happens to you, but how you see what happens to you, and what you do with it. Response versus React.   Let’s stop here, and let me make it very clear that I am human. Although I like to think I am  superhuman on most days! I get angry, sad, depressed and frustrated, just like everyone else, but I just knew that I could not allow my emotions to be in control. I have seen many people fight through cancer. It is a HORRIBLE UGLY DISEASE. For those that did not allow negativity to take the wheel  got through it better. I am not sure it is because the treatments became lighter, or their pain decrease, they had just made up their minds that they would not let it consume them. For those that continue to live, and those that I know that passed on, HOW they handled it is something that I remember.  Cancer is cancer. The treatments will be the treatments - but it not going to drive me crazy. I will not lose my mind over this! I

I believe that I was created for a reason. I don’t always know that reason is specifically,  but I know that spreading love and light is definitely part of the assignment. I feel like my mission is to be light in dark places, to bring joy to those in sorrow, to bring hope where there is despair and to give demonstrate love to those I encounter. I guess, God wanted to expand my territory to the hallways of those living with breast cancer.  Although I always consider it an honor to be chosen by God to do anything, I didn’t want this assignment. I didn’t. I was tired. I had just undergone two major surgeries last year and I was still trying to mentally recover from that.(I will talk about that later) I didn’t want this!!!!! I DON’T WANT THIS -  But here I am.  

Once I got off the phone with the nurse, I knew I couldn’t fall apart. I was trying to get my emotions together and put my “happy face mask” on to go back to serve the people.  My boss was the one to find me in the corner with a crazy daze on my face. Although you don’t anticipate your boss, being the person that is there for you in such a sensitive time, I am glad mine was. Thanks Mike! He looked at me with such compassionate eyes and he said, “You are going to be ok.” Those small words were like a life saver that kept me from quickly falling into the dark tunnel of negative thoughts and despair.  I smiled and replied, “Yes, I will…God’s Got Me!”. I wiped the tear that was falling, I gave him a big hug and I went back to work. Work was a good escape for the moment.

My co-workers began to find out, and they took it hard. They immediately got sad and began to hug me. It was funny, I had to be strong for them and console them to reassure them that I was going to be ok. My co-workers are like my little babies. Most are younger than me, and it is very important that I can be a positive example to them on how to handle things in life. Why do I feel like that is my responsibility? Well, so many people before me did it for me - so it is my duty and honor to try to be that same light for others.  Plus, reassuring my coworkers was giving me the faith fuel that I needed in order to deal with the most daunting of duties….I had to go home and tell my mother that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Once I arrived home, I just sat there for a moment. My life was forever changed, and now I had to forever change my mom’s. I didn’t want to! How do you go give this horrible news to a person you love so much.  I knew I had to tell her. I wish I would have had a shot of whiskey to give me a little liquid courage…but that wouldn’t have worked. I took a deep breath, whispered, “Lord help me.”  As I entered my home,  it was like she just knew something was wrong. I am a horrible liar, even emotionally. Unfortunately, I am a person who wears their emotions on their sleeve. Even though I was trying to smile, she saw that something was wrong in my eyes.  I knew there was no sense in belaboring  the moment. I told her that the nurse called me with the biopsy results and I have been diagnosed with breast cancer.  I felt like I drove a knife In my mother’s heart. We sat and cried together. Other than our sobs, the house had a very loud silence.  Another FROZEN MOMENT. I reassured her, I was going to be ok (rather I believed it or not in that moment). I wanted my mom to be ok - so I had to tell her I was going to be ok. The reality of this diagnosis to her child - her baby - was a lot.  I gave her a kiss and kept repeating it, “I’m going to be ok MOM.” I don’t know if I was trying to convince her or myself.  As she walked to the window and just stared into the darkness with tears falling down her cheeks, I knew she had to process this for herself. Yes, this was happening to me - but it was also effecting her - DOMINO EFFECT. MY life impacts my mother, not just because we live together, or because I am her caretaker, but because I am her child.  She was the vessel that God chose to bring me into this world and all of my life , she was the one to “make it better”. She knew that this was something that she couldn’t just put a band-aid on, turn the night light on, or kiss me to make it go away. I was going to have to GO THROUGH THIS. Seeing my mother’s pain was harder for me than hearing the nurse say “unfortunately the tumor is malignant.” 

7 years ago when my mom retired and I had the opportunity to take care of her, I wanted to make life easier for her. I watched how she worked to provide for me and my siblings to the best of her ability and I now wanted to do the same for her. I wanted to her to have no stress or worry. Now, I felt like I hand delivered stress and worry to her on a pink platter with this diagnosis.  Deep sigh!! As I laid in my bed and begged God to help me, I heard my mother’s cries. MARCH 6, 2024. This was now a day neither one of us would forget.  As I was drifting off to sleep, I knew that I had to fight. Because now cancer hurt my mom - and I don’t play about my momma! Domino Effect!!! I will not just be strong for myself, or my co-workers, but now for my mom and my family! I realize that when I am good - my mom is good. Just as Mrs. Von, transferred her faith - I too will continue to pass that faith along!  A chain reaction. No matter how isolated you may feel in your life or situation, your life is linked to so many others; Not just your family and friends, not just clients and collegues, but also the strangers you encounter every day. What are you passing on to them? Are you passing on a bad attitude, negativity, hatred, frustration, sassiness, sarcasm, disgust? Who you are and what you feel is transferred through your energy and actions.  Just like someone may not know what you were going through - you don’t know what they are going through.

When I got off the phone with the nurse at work, do you think I felt like going to get a ranch dressing, refill a sweet tea, or give an extra scoop of strawberry butter for someone’s chicken and waffle. Heck No!  I wanted to throw that chicken and waffle at the waffle scream and run out the door.  Could you have imagine that?? Lol Sitting in a diner and the next thing you see is a sever lose her mind? Lol. Not funny…but funny.   I MADE THE DECISION in that moment that I would help defrost my FROZEN MOMENT by being warm, love and light to my guests. I can’t tell you anyone that I served that day, but I can tell you I laughed a lot. My guests had no idea the news that was just given to me - but they made me forget about it for a little while. This is hard. I am not going to lie, but I will say, that I am working very intentionally on not allowing this to make me a mean and sad person. If I have to go through this, and I know how it makes me feel - I don’t want to spread the sadness, the anger. I don’t want anyone to feel that. I will remember the hope and spread that instead!