Three Gifts

Three things my fight with cancer has given me:

-my family. I have a large and close family and my time spent with cancer opened up new family closeness and opportunities for me. I always had my family and knew I could count on them, but my experience with this bastard disease, has brought them all so much closer to me in my heart, my thoughts, and there has been more time spent together. It seems that the family members are making more time together, as well. The extended family of many cousins on both sides of the family has spread so far and so wide, but I now know more of them in a closer way, and I work harder at keeping in touch with them.

-my friends. This journey down the illness road changed my friendships. It sounds trite and cliche, but it truly did open my eyes to 'who my friends really are'. There are people who I expected to be right beside me who, for their own reasons, had to run the other way. I'm okay with that and I don't think I have judged them for that. Each person has to make their own decisions in any given situation. However, the relationships with those people have changed. There were other people who I didn't expect any support from who were with me every step of the way, and my realtionships with them have also changed. There is a different closeness and level of trust and it gives me peace.

-my attitudes. I still struggle with poor and destructive coping mechanisms and reactions to people and situations, but I catch the negativity and ill-fated consequences much sooner now. I'm far more likely to let things go and to laugh and to sing and to find some small good thing about most situations. I have not quite created the lifestyle I want, but am taking steps to get there. I don't know why my life was spared or what I am meant to do, but little glimmers of that happen each day. I don't think I've been put on this earth or my life spared for some noble purpose, but I do know I have talents and gifts of myself to share with others. Keying into that and working toward the little good I can add to someone else's life, even for a moment, is the most satisfying feeling. To truly give of myself with no expectations of favors returned or undying gratitude is what this whole thing called life is about, for me.