all the pink things
Ten years ago this month, I organized a group of about 12 family and friends to participate in a Breast Cancer Walk at a local park. The event was just a few days before my wedding, and it coincided with the 30th anniversary of my grandmother being cancer free. I thought it would be a nice kick-off to my wedding festivities, and an easy way for me to celebrate my grannie for being such a bad-ass. But when I called her to suggest that we walk in her honor, she was silent.
“Eh,” she said, “I am not really into that.” I couldn’t believe it. “What is wrong with you? You’re a survivor!! Celebrate that!!” I scolded her, told her she was nuts, signed her up and aptly named the team ‘Team Sally Pants’ in her honor.
It was a crisp fall morning on the day of the walk, and it was as disorganized as it was crowded. My grannie was in a good mood, happy to be surrounded by friends and family, and in every other conversation I could hear the notes of her laughter floating through the air.
We walked in a sea of mostly women, many wearing pink, some with tee shirts saying “We love our boobies,” others with the name of a loved one who didn’t survive. My grandmother, like so many, wore a banner bearing the word “Survivor.” We held hands for some of it, and I looked over at her at one point and she seemed at a loss for words. She was not an overly emotional woman, so seeing a tear in her eye gave me pause. “You ok?,” I asked her. She was silent.
“There are so many women,” she said. “It is so nice, and it is so sad.” I reached over and hugged her, and the day went off without fanfare. Aside from the pictures, I really haven’t thought of that day or that exchange much until earlier this month, when I was asked if I wanted to participate in a Breast Cancer Walk nearby.
The anger I felt when asked that simple question surprised me. It was a kind invitation, and one that certainly made sense given my breast cancer diagnosis this spring. Still, the words burned in my ears. I got mad, the same kind of mad I got when someone suggested I wear a “fuck cancer” tee shirt.
NO, I thought. I don’t want to walk. I don’t want to wear a pink ribbon or a banner or a tee shirt or anything really that acknowledges my diagnosis, even if I am cancer free.
I don’t want to celebrate what I had no hand in choosing.
I get it now. I get why my grannie didn’t want to walk in the walk. It’s because she survived. And yes, that’s cause for celebration, but it’s also cause for guilt. How some get so lucky while others do not. How I can escape a deadly disease by having a drastic surgery and 10 years of medication but get to skip the chemo and radiation. How I can be cancer free and make plans for the future while others don’t have that luxury.
There’s no choice in any of this: no one wants to have cancer, let alone die of cancer.
But there IS choice in what we do with ourselves once we’ve gotten the diagnosis. And that’s what I learned from my grannie, who eventually died of uterine cancer almost four years ago. Her choice was to live loudly, live fully, live happily. To travel and laugh and say yes to everything, because she often told me she felt she was living on borrowed time, having had cancer at just 48 years old.
Imagine living every day like it is your last for more than 30 years. Imagine how much gratitude, how much joy, how much love you could absorb if you thought today is the last day, every day. Imagine how much wisdom you could impart if you stopped to appreciate every small thing that happened on every ordinary day of your life.
Wisdom like the words I found in an email she sent me days after that walk she didn’t want to do. “Amanda,” it reads, “Thank you for a lovely day. I was humbled and honored to be surrounded by so many strong women, including you. We are all survivors of something, and that’s cause to celebrate.”
And she was right: celebrating that you’re alive doesn’t mean you’re any less sad or upset that someone else isn’t as lucky. Of course we are heartbroken; no one should die of cancer. But I can see now that all of the pink things are really just a way for us to say we’re trying. We’re trying to beat the thing we can’t control. We’re trying to hold onto whatever we can that gives us hope. We walk and wear pink because we are desperate to do anything to help in a fight in which we are often outmatched.
So do more of the things you can do. Get mammograms. Get sonograms. Be vigilant. Pay attention to your body. Eat healthy. Work out. Avoid stress. Wear the pink shirt and walk in the walk, if you want to. And most important of all: be happy.
