Learning to Dance in Spite of the Storms

Milestones..the word usually conjures up images of infants beginning to crawl, walk, talk, etc. Milestones occur at any age. Some milestones a typical teenager may experience are first dates, the first kiss, high school, prom, graduation. As the typical person continues in life they gauge time by such milestones. "It has been fifteen years since I graduated high school" I recently heard. For me the statement would be more likely to be "it has been eighteen years since I completed chemotherapy." Somewhere along the way I began noticing the bad milestones and counting from there.

When my therapist recently asked me to name one milestone unrelated to my cancer diagnosis at age nine or my cancer relapse at age 15, I was unable. Moments prior I spoke about how I was passing twenty-five years as a cancer survivor and about to embark on nineteen-years since the relapse. She surprised me with the words, "you do realize most people count their lives based on positive milestones, don't you?" Her follow up question was to ask me what I have done in my life that I consider a milestone-outside of cancer survival.

My answers were the normal high school milestones though mine occurred after the cancer relapse and it dampened my responses some. I have always been proud of graduating high school in 1995 which was the year I was set to graduate when entering kindergarten back in 1982. I missed a lot of school and 80 percent of the tenth grade. My going on to college and graduating magna cum laude with a 3.92 GPA in the honor's program was a result of working hard-something I cultivated to graduate high school on time.

What milestones came after college? Those are the easy ones...a loving husband, two children who I still marvel at the very existence of, breaking a dependency on pain medication..all milestones completed after chemotherapy but during those dark years (from diagnosis through relapse) I measured life based on time frame from being actively sick. From time to time, I continue this behavior pattern.

"It has been another year since the most disappointing day of my life (cancer relapse)" I think each year in early November. This year marks one year since my mom's death from cancer. I am certain the old behavior patterns will hold true at times in remembering how many years it has been since she died. This year I have decided to focus more on anniversaries such as April 15 ^th when it will be nine years since my mom almost fell over when we learned my son was conceived (she was in shock I could have children).

My children and I passed another milestone this year. We made fudge from the same recipe my mom used for many years as we remembered her. Remembering her was sad but beautiful at the same time. Making her fudge was our way of dancing in the storm from her illness and death.

Milestones are interesting things. When someone has many bad ones, it is easy to count life from the bad. How many people have lived like me in depression because of not being able to count life from the good? The other night my 6 year old daughter and 7 year old son sat with me on a recliner on our porch as we watched the rain. We cuddled and talked about how sometimes life brings storms. Some people's lives appear to have more storms than others but we all have them. The old cliche about making lemons from lemonade is true and because of our health issues it may be more a case of avoiding the rotten lemons. Even rotten lemons have a purpose...and it is not to count our lives by them. The purpose is to live in spite of them.