October2...Gone for Another Year

Been wondering why my sleep patterns and appetite have been
disturbed the past couple of days...why I just felt kind of "out
of sorts"...and then, today, I realized yesterday was October 2,
a more-than-momentous date in my life.

Thirty-nine years ago on that day, my thirty-seven-year-old
husband died of the leukemia which had overwhelmed his
previously healthy body. It had been exactly one month from
his diagnosis to his death and to say my entire family was
devastated would be understating the effects it had on each
and all of us. My children were seven, nine, and eleven and I
was only thirty-three. October 2, 1975 became a day which
worked its way deep into my psyche, into the innermost parts
of who I was and am.

Fast-forward nine years to south Florida, with a second
marriage and three teenagers and a newly-adopted three-
year-old, when I found a lump in my right breast and, on
October 2, underwent surgery in Boca Raton. I was only
forty-two, had already lost one aunt to breast cancer, had
another aunt undergoing treatment, and I was more than a
little frightened. But lots of prayers later and bouyed by
the loving care of good friends in our church community,
by the loving support of my family, far and near, by dear
friends around the country, I found the fear leaving and I
gradually became a woman who had once HAD cancer.

However, one of the things I have learned over years of
living is that the body has a memory of its own, even
when the mind is occupied with other things. Thus, my
recent malaise. Another thing I've learned: knowing why
I feel a certain way helps me to deal with it...helps me
to look at it, remember, and then let it slip away like sand
through my fingers, bringing me back firmly and lovingly
to the present...today...October 3. I believe it's called survival.