Skip To The Car

 Another year. "Oh Please Let Me Live Another Year Without Cancer."

Another Mammogram.

Another time to hold your breath and now breathe.

Another wait for the test results. 

Another year I got to skip to the car! (Actually I skipped half-way to the car because I didn't get the results while I was still there.  They changed me from diagnostic mammograms to screening mammograms...so it's not as intense.)

I decided; even though I didn't know FOR SURE there wasn't anything found; to still skip to the car.  I'm glad I did because by the time I got back home they had the test results on MYchart. 

Beautiful.

Grateful.

Thankful. 

Joyful. 

Skip to the Car! Skip throughout your life. Just Skip!!!

Having A Black Folder Is Needed Today More Than Ever

I can understand why people are afraid to talk about death, theirs or anyone else's.

It's not a pleasant topic.  

It's scary to think we will not exist or that our loved ones will no longer be with us.  But after COVID-19 and many dying at the hands of guns just going through normal life activities we must confront it. 

Many people think just talking about death brings it on. 

I understand that fear. It makes sense.

Having a Black Folder is about understanding one day you will not be here and starting from that day you create your black folder jump starts honing in on the legacy you want to leave behind...for your family...for the world. 

Yes, it is scary but think of the alternative...not facing the inevitable, leaving your family unprepared and not working towards living a life well-lived.  

 The Black Folder Project helps individuals and families have a step-by-step plan to end of life planning. 

Hold Your Breath

 Hold Your Breath...

This is what they tell you when they take the mammogram image.

Breathe...

This is what they tell you after they take the image.

Hold Your Breath takes on a new meaning when you go in for a diagnostic mammogram after having breast cancer. They take image after image.  They take magnifying images.  They show those images to the radiologist to review while you are there waiting.  They want to know if they need to take more images.  They need to know if they need to do a ultrasound.  All of those things mean that the radiologist has seen something that's concerning and your cancer may have returned. 

Each year this is the hardest 15 minutes of waiting of my life. 

• 
• 15 minutes to wonder if I can go on living without cancer treatment. 
• 15 minutes to wonder if I can go on with "my life plans" or if as my mother put it..."you can't run God's program"...does God have other ideas for my life...you know like time's up.  
• 15 minutes praying they don't find anything.
• 15 minutes of...holding your breath.

I promised myself if I could walk out of there without them finding anything that I would skip to the car. 

I got to skip to the car today!  

Another year to be grateful for still being alive, doing what God wants me to do, and being kind to all that  cross my path. 

 

Coming Full Circle with a Synchronistic Moment

This month I came full circle and had a synchronistic moment. 

It was my first day manning the United Healthcare Medicare kiosk in Walgreens.

Many of my previous “jobs” and experiences came into place:

-         NC Credit Union – Setting up booths and tables to market the Credit Union, greeting the public and answering questions

-         VA Credit Union – Creating and teaching a robbery training class…it was a public place and anything can happen

-         -NC Police Department – Keeping my head on a swivel and paying attention even if it looked like I wasn’t paying attention

-         VA and NC Art Shows– Setting up for art shows, greeting and talking to people

A gentleman walked in who was about 35-40 years old, dressed in a nice pair of jeans, a shirt (don’t remember the color), some copper-colored tennis shoes and a hat with the same copper color in the initials on the cap.  He said hello and I responded back.  

I then noticed him in the check-out line which had grown to about 4-5 people.  I don’t remember what he purchased but heard him ask about the flowers and the cashier saying they were for Breast Cancer Month.  He picked up a bunch and continued to wait in line. I thought how nice and thoughtful that was of him to get them for someone who had been through or going through breast cancer. 

Another One Gone To Soon - Hollis G. Mason

Another one of my son’s high school friends was murdered. 

He was in town for their 20-year high school reunion.

He went to get some food and someone came up to him and killed him. Shot him while his daughter and family waited for the food to come, instead they got the unthinkable that he wasn’t coming back home, he was not ever coming back home because someone had decided to play God as my son said.

So here I sit, in a different place than the last time this happened to one of his high school friends. I have the black folder project (may need to update the booklet, but I have it and can roll with it) but now I also can provide life insurance if someone needs it…and everyone needs it.

Somehow my heart feels like it is on the floor outside of my body.  It feels kind of hard to breath. Every mother knows this feeling.  At least every “so called black” mother does (another day for why I put so called black in quotes).  It is heart wrenching.  It is not your child but you feel some level of anguish for the mother of that child.   It is just heart wrenching. 

As I Sit Quietly, Watching The World

 Water Lapping

Wind Blowing

Kids Laughing

Lawn Mowers Mowing

Bushes Waving

Hearts Pounding

Sun Setting

Birds Flying

Pages Ruffling

Lips Smiling

Remember You Are STILL Dying

 You can't go through life thinking about cancer returning

There is no cancer 

Remember when cancer was the answer? 

Remember when you thought you were dying? 

Remember that you are STILL dying

Just because you "beat" cancer doesn't mean you are not STILL dying

Everyday you wake up and go to sleep you are dying over and over again