If ever I get lost in the "what matters I circle back a decade.
We were supposed to go camping that weekend with our girls. She'd ignored the purple bruises on her legs because she'd taken some epic falls while wakeboarding. When she finally agreed to go the ER, the doctors counted her healthy white blood cells in the single digits.
That glorious Fall, she watched the leaves turn from her hospital bed. A former nurse, she never blinked at the shunts or the needles or the vomit and sweat. She asked for simple things; visits, macaroni and cheese and scarves. She never once considered giving up, even after they told her her heart had stopped during neutropenic fever. That winter, she learned the nerves in her feet were deadened from the most aggressive chemo they could offer. She would sometimes stumble when we walked that Spring. A chemo fog that slowed her speech lingered in her brain into the summer.
The steroids blew her body up nearly twice her size. She lost her hair, her eyebrows, and her endless energy. We watched a lot of cooking shows that year.
She rested.
She healed.
She changed.
She gave up the stressful part of her business and focused only on the things and people that mattered--family, music and her friends. She ate kale and downed probiotics. She cleaned out her cleaning supplies and anything else in her life that was toxic.
She didn't just survive cancer, she transformed me and a lot of other people who witnessed the metamorphosis.
Adversity takes from us, all right. It rips and claws at the stuff that doesn't matter to reveal exactly who and what should remain. Tonight, we celebrate ten years of life lived unapologetically. To you, @MichelleDeCourcy, for fighting through those difficult days to celebrate the best of life ahead.
