October is breast cancer awareness month, but most of us don’t need to be reminded to be aware of the disease. We already are aware. We know a friend or family member who’s currently fighting it or has fought it in the past. We recognize that breast cancer is hard and heartbreaking, and that it doesn’t discriminate in age. But what we don’t often talk about, is how can we support our friend or loved one who is fighting breast cancer?
from an article originally posted August 19, 2014…
Dear Cancer,
There are a few things I’d like to say to you this morning. A lot of what I want to say is salty and ugly, but I will do my best to use the nice words and not the ones that often get dropped too easily around my house. Cancer, you are and always have been an unwelcome guest in the home of me. But I thought we could work it out, I thought we could fight on Tuesday, you would see I kept house poorly and you would leave. We planned on that. We worked on that. I fought to not hate you as you took unwelcome residence in my body.
Guest Post by Sharon Morginsky
Even though my mom’s eyes were closed most of the time as she lay dying, she knew which of her children were sitting beside her. She rubbed my hand while we sat like she had my whole life. My hand, which is beginning to wrinkle and look like hers and my grandmother's and my great-grandmother's. It was her gentle way of mothering me right up to the very end. The simple act of rubbing the baby in my own belly in this 9th month has made me think of her rubbing my hand, undoing me with grief. I pictured her rubbing her belly when she was pregnant with me and then rubbing my hands at the end. Mothering before I came into this world and mothering as she left.
It’s breast cancer awareness month, and we’ll all be seeing a lot of pink around us. I can admit that when Kara was sick, I used to get a bit cranky about all of the pink. I would wonder why we needed a reminder about breast cancer. Doesn’t everyone know someone who’s had it or is currently dealing with it? I didn’t need a ribbon to prompt me to think about such a devastating disease.
We talk a lot about community here, about just showing up for people around us who are hurting, about what it means to trust God in the midst of suffering, looking for grace in the mundane. I love our Mundane Faithfulness team, our readers and friends, our financial supporters (without whom we wouldn’t exist!), the Facebook MFC. Some days I am downright overwhelmed with the love and encouragement around me.
