I remember specifically one day being outside and it was one of those
beautiful fall days in North Carolina and feeling like my life was as close to
perfect as it could be. So I think yeah things were looking great I was almost to
the end of my first year of law school so I was excited about getting school over
with. You know when you're that age you think that nothing can go wrong. I had a
new baby I had a great husband and wonderful parents and wonderful friends.
It was a time in our lives where we thought life was just beginning. All of
a sudden life that seemed to be as close to perfect as it could drastically
changed. Things went from looking pretty good pretty rosy to not not so good at
all in a very short period of time. Literally within a couple of weeks I
had the word that my father's bladder cancer had returned and that one of my
best friends who was 33 years old had breast cancer. When the diagnosis
occurred it was clear that she had a very limited time left so everything was
was turned upside down. When we went back to the doctor he handed me a box of
Kleenex and he said this is going to be a very long day. I knew it wasn't going to
be okay and I was very very scared but she said I'm sorry Sophia has a mass in
her brain. We felt like we'd been hit by a freight train. Life did a 180 on us.
Needless to say life as any of us had known it it was it was never gonna get
back to that point. It wasn't until I got to the hospital and could see him
that I realized that there was no coming back. It was untreatable type of brain
tumor and she went through chemotherapy and radiation therapy which was not a
pleasant experience. I remember this moment where after she'd been diagnosed
where she had this realization that she was never going to see any of her
grandkids. She was she was a great mother. We had all those same things and hopes
and dreams for Sophia that we would get that first bike ride that first pushed
on the swing. So our world went from play dates and going to the zoo to MRIs and
chemotherapy and surgeries. In the case of Sabrina she said you know I understand
that God only gives you as much as you can handle but she said I wish she
didn't have such a high opinion of me. She faced the disease not with a clenched
fist but with an open hand. It's a segment between two different lives for me
and I have before cancer and after cancer. I cried every day for a year but I'm
getting to the point where yes I miss him every single day but I know he's with
me. Sophia is a very was and still is a very determined child. I have two
daughters and I hope that when they are my age they do not have to deal with the
losses that so many of us have endured because of cancer.
you
