Stella Blue

My life with metastatic breast cancer.

Category Archives: Life is beautiful


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Happy Birthday

Today is my 35th birthday. It probably goes without saying that birthdays mean something very different to me now. I am so thankful to be sitting here today, so incredibly happy to be able to celebrate this day with my family — especially my father, because today is his birthday also. Instead of talking about myself and how grateful I am, I’m going to take this opportunity to write about my Dad. My father was just 23 years old on September 26, 1978, the day I came into this world. I always tease him and say that I don’t need to buy him birthday gifts because I gave him the best gift he could ever ask for when I was born. Dad served four years as a Seabee in the U.S. Navy and left the service to raise me. My mother was pretty young when she gave birth to me and not quite ready for the responsibility of motherhood, so my father stepped up to the challenge and began his new career as a single father. He had help from friends and family so he wasn’t truly alone, but even with help being a single parent isn’t easy. I can’t thank him enough for the sacrifices he made as a young man — sacrifices that most men probably wouldn’t make now, let alone back then. Dad worked swing shifts at the local VA hospital in order to provide for me and it was many years before he met a woman as amazing as him that would lead to the wonderful family that I have now (we’ll save that story for another time). It wasn’t all sunshine and roses — I obviously become a teenager at some point — but we all survived. Dad was always there for me, sometimes whether I wanted him to be or not, and now he is here for me in a way that neither of us ever imagined. Since my diagnosis my father has made the long drive up here too many times to count. He’s driven in Boston to take me to doctor’s appointments and changed poopy diapers, both things that he detests. He’s cooked and cleaned and run countless errands. He’s held me while I cried. Dad, today you are 58 and I am 35. I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me, and for all you will do for me. We don’t have an easy road ahead of us, but I know you will be there by my side the entire way. So today I wish you the happiest of birthdays. You are an amazing father and I love you so very much.

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The sounds of summer

I lie with my head nestled into his shoulder listening to the symphony of thunder, cicadas, and rain falling outside our bedroom window. The sounds of summer, amplified in the close darkness of night. My thoughts drift to another time, a time before the sweet one sleeping peacefully across the hall, before the furry one curled up at our toes. A time when a home, a new car, and a career seemed so distant — haphazard dreams in the chaos of youth. We had friends, disposable income, the incomprehensible vastness of a life yet to unfold. We were not burdened by experience. Our life was full, and it was all so grand.

I turn my face into his arm to smother the tears before he can notice. I press my cheek into his dampened t-shirt and think about the richness he has brought to my life. The moment stretches suddenly before me and we are the same as before, the same as always — a shared space, his arm hooked around my shoulders. We are no longer carefree, we are no longer young. We have added a thickness to our middles and a weariness to our eyes. We hug with a worn, familiar ease but we are not tired. We are Atlas now, together, our knees struggling to support the weight — for our friends, our family, our child — for each other.

I close my eyes and it could be the first summer, or two, five, ten summers past. The sounds are the same, always a melancholy tune to sing you sweetly to sleep and a promise of raucous birds to wake you, celebrating the dawn. I close my eyes and the vision of time passed becomes blurred. It is childish, but I want this moment to last forever. I want the comforting weight of his arm to remain, to remind me that our life is full — that it really is so grand.


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For Andrew

I know you haven’t summoned the strength to read my blog yet, but I wanted to give you a little something to show how much we have accomplished. I am so lucky to have found you in this crazy world and I want to thank you for the last thirteen years. I hope we have many more years to come and although I cannot promise you that, I can promise that the memories we have made and the life we created together — our beautiful son, Owen, — will always provide comfort to you no matter what the future holds. We have lived an amazing life together and our story isn’t over yet. I know we have a hard road ahead of us but I also know it will be full of wonderful new memories and lots of joy and happiness as long as we are on it together. I love you.


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Poetry

A good book of poems and a quiet yet brief moment with River was my inspiration for today. Some of you know I love to write poetry, although I am no Emily Dickinson. I have rarely shared my poems with others so please, be kind.

RIVER AT THE LAKE

She smells of earthworms
caught, lured out of their safety
by sweet, damp Spring.

She leans against my side
for warmth, gently.
A comforting, stalwart presence.

Here we could stay
forever, but for life —
and the loons
and fish that leap, oh!

So with a startling harrumph
she leaves me,
because the lake is alive
with possibility.

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It’s simply love.

It has taken me four months to write this post. Four months that seem like an eternity. December 27th, 2012 was the day that my life changed forever — it spun out of control and I lost sight of everything. Well, almost everything. In some ways everything became clearer than it’s ever been before. I’ve lost a lot in four short months — a life without worry and fear, the ability to create dreams for the future, my hair. But what I’ve found is love. I don’t mean that in a cheesy, “all you need is love” kind of way. Or maybe I do, because there is nothing else that is more important now than love.

If you’re like me you have always loved your friends and family, even though at times it may have been challenging. This love is there now in fact, but maybe you take it for granted. I know I did. The love that is present in my life now is so much more powerful. It’s rooted in my gut so deeply that I am often overwhelmed by the feeling of it. It’s demanding and relentless, my desperate and constant companion. Every second I spend with a loved one, whether it is a family member, friend, or even colleague, is weighted down with this feeling of love. I always want more and the sadness of someday losing it sends me reeling, grasping to hold on as long as possible while it pulls away slowly, quietly. It dances at the fringe of my fingertips, flirting with me in the most devastating way.

I feel this way towards everyone in my life, even strangers. This is more compassion than love I suppose, but it’s just as deep. I see things in a way I’ve never seen them before. Nowhere is it more present than at my hospital. I look around the waiting room while I’m there and secretly absorb the love that is all around. The elderly husband pushing his wife in a wheelchair, bending down to catch her magazine as it falls to the ground, her baseball cap hiding a fine wisp of hair. The weary mother of a disabled adult, patiently requesting that he speak with her in the hallway as he yells at her and causes a scene, her hand lovingly pressed to the small of his back. The parents of a little girl, her pale and tired form molded perfectly against her mother’s chest, the father bending slightly to brush his lips against the crown of her bald head. I wonder what we must look like sitting there, me and my husband. I wonder if anyone notices our love in such a way, these little details which are now so obvious to me.

One of the things that has struck me since being diagnosed with stage IV cancer is the need to live for the day. Being a planner by nature, this is very difficult for me and something I struggle with constantly. I try to find something beautiful each day to appreciate and remind myself that tomorrow is never promised, not for anyone. Some days it is very hard to see through the dense fog of my disease and I have to consciously seek out that one thing of beauty. Other days are abundant with opportunities. I’d like to leave something here that will help all of us remember to find this beauty in life, and I plan to do this as close to daily as I can manage. Today I’ll leave you with a picture of the most ferocious love in my life, my son. I hope you all have someone who threatens your heart to burst as much as this guy does mine.

these two teeth

Cheese!