Helen was tall and slender and full of smiles as saw my mom walking down the aisle. They hadn’t seen each other in months. Mom had been off work after having a stroke and this was her first return visit.
It was just a visit, but Mom was letting her co-workers/friends know she would be back. Tears flowed that day. And why wouldn’t they? Life is hard and bad things happen to good people and that's all the more reason to celebrate the victories.
I think Helen recognized my mom’s fighting spirit. She recognized it because she possesses a ton of it herself. Her life has been full of hardship.
She has heart problems – partially blocked arteries. One of her sons was killed years ago in a train accident. Another one of her sons has physical challenges as a result of the injuries he sustained during that same accident. And her marriage did not end well, through no fault of her own.
Recently, she was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. For the past four weeks she’s been undergoing radiation treatments. She cannot afford to miss that much work (who can?), but cancer doesn’t care. Thankfully, many of the people who know Helen do care and they held a couple of fundraisers for her.
This past weekend, I asked Mom how Helen is doing. She told me a great story. In spite of undergoing radiation treatments for the last month, and being unable to speak, and spending a lot of time in bed when she’s not receiving treatment, Helen wrote a letter to her doctor. She gave him his two weeks notice.
She isn’t replacing him. Instead, she was telling him that the medical profession has just two more weeks to attack the cancer inside her. She didn’t write the letter out of spite, but instead, she did so out of a spirit that says she will endure the full six weeks. But no more.
Apparently it moved her doctor so much that he is going to frame the letter. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t point future cancer patients to the letter, saying, “This won’t be easy, but you can do it – just like the woman who wrote this letter.”
