Live Strong

Today is LiveStrong Day. My yellow surrounds me, in the nearby meadow and lining every trail.

I also wear yellow every day - a LiveStrong wrist band. I put it on about 17 months ago when our yellow lab, S, was diagnosed with cancer. I miss our boy, and I can't bear to take off the bracelet that I placed on my wrist in his honor. He lives on, in part, in R and K. He was a patient big brother who helped raise both of them.

 You can see my yellow wrist band in the photo below, taken with S's protege, the black lab R.

Neither of my current dogs knew my first "heart dog" - Acadia. She taught me about how deep the human-dog bond can be. Acadia died of cancer, more than seven years ago. I wear a golden heart around my neck in her memory.  I like the photo below of her because, when I visualize heaven, it sits atop a high mountain with snow capped peaks all around it, just like Acadia in the photo below.

After Acadia died, I didn't believe that I'd ever love another dog like I'd loved her. However, I was willing risk heartbreak and try. I found K, in the faraway state of Virginia, awaiting me. Later, I learned that she'd been conceived on the very day that Acadia died. Serendipity. Although K's spirit is dramatically different from Acadia's, she and I share a love as deep as Acadia and I did. I never thought that I'd be so lucky as to experience such a deep bond twice in my life.

Part of why I keep wearing my LiveStrong wrist band so long after S departed this world is that it represents taking the bad in life and making something good from it. Lance Armstrong had a horrendous battle with cancer. He took the agony and pain that he'd experienced during his illness, and he transformed it into life-changing energy. First, he re-found his love of bike racing and made an unbelievable comeback to win the Tour de France a record number of times. Then, he used his bike-racing fame to create and champion the LiveStrong organization.

Regardless of what hurdles we face in life, his example of facing a heinous battle and finding a way to emerge stronger is inspirational. I want to face my hurdles in the same way - and that's a big part of why I still wear my LiveStrong wrist band.

There's one other reason. My mom died of breast cancer at a young age so cancer changed the course of my life. Every day, I miss my mother, and I face the fear that I'll have a life as short as hers. One of the last things that she said to me was that she felt so terrible to leave me with this genetic legacy. Believe me, she left me with far more than pieces of her DNA -  she left me with a legacy of love. But, I feel a personal stake in the race to cure cancer.

Part of what my fear has taught me is to try to appreciate each day, to notice the small bits of beauty around me, and to notice the tough yet beautiful survivors.

  

Seize the day - for you never know what might happen next.