An inspiration to us all...

Last night I met a 23 year breast cancer survivor. We had dinner with her family. This wasn't the first time I'd met her, though, her daughter and I have been friends since junior high school, and we'd kept in touch all these years. They had come to Florida on vacation, and she had come with them.

They had gotten to the restaurant before we did, so when we got there and the only table seated started waving at us, we headed over. I recognized my friend as an older woman got up for the table and started over towards us. Maybe it was the lighting, which was a little dim, but I'm embarrassed to say I didn't recognize her at first. I didn't remember that she was also coming. As she opened her arms to give me a hug. "How are you doing?" she said. I knew that voice. That's when it clicked. The last time I'd seen her was sometime not too long after we graduated from high school, now nearly 30 years ago, and many years before her own diagnosis... I don't remember if my friend had told me about it at the time. I don't think she did. But when I got my own diagnosis, she told me about her own mom, and that some 20 years later, she was fine and thriving.

All through the evening, while we talked, I remembered her laugh, the same after all these years. She looked wonderful. About halfway through the evening, she lowered her voice a little and asked how I was doing. It wasn't the same question as before. Nor was she being secretive, but instead, respectful. Her grandchildren were sitting at the other end of the table. We talked about being survivors. About how when she was diagnosed, you didn't talk about it. How the doctors sometimes treated her as if it was somehow her fault. That it was somehow shameful that she had cancer... and breast cancer, oh my, that was taboo even to the doctors. At the time she didn't tell anyone what happened to her either, until one day, a few years after her mastectomy she was training to be a home help care provider. The subject of breast cancer and mastectomies came up. One of the other women said, "Oh, I would rather die then loose my breast. My husband would leave me." That was it. That's when she spoke up and for the first time told her story. She told them what had happened to her... "So what if you loose a breast. You can live. And if you husband doesn't like that, well then good riddance to him. Who needs him anyway. There is life AFTER cancer." We talked more about the women who have made it possible for the rest of us to talk about it. Betty Ford, Susan Komen, and so many others. How now, every direction you turn, you see pink ribbons, and pink hats, and pink... everything. Breast cancer had final come out of the shadows and into the light. And we lamented the fact that 23 years after her diagnosis, women still get breast cancer and we still don't know why and we still don't have a cure.

As we parted ways in the parking lot, I told her how good it was to see her again. How I'd planned to follow in her footsteps. How I plan to be a long term survivor, too. Actually, I wasn't entirely truthful. I plan to beat her record, and I want her to make it hard to beat. She's still adding survivor years to her total... She's going to be adding them for some time to come... And I'll be following behind her, following the light that so many of us, too many of us, hold high to guide those following behind us. To light the way and prove there is life after breast cancer. We'll beat this and maybe one day, the line that follows us will dwindle to nothing. It's what we all hope for. And in the meantime we look to those who have gone before and see hope... Thank you, Beverly, for being an inspiration to us all....