This month, I had the privilege of participating in the George Washington Breast Care Center Survivor Luncheon. It was a beautiful event celebrating the patients from the Breast Care Center – with great company, great remarks, and last, but not least, great food. I was honored to be asked by my surgeon, Dr. Christine Teal, to sing, but I also said a few words about my experience.
Here are my remarks, here’s a video of me singing! Sorry for the tilted-ness and sound quality. My dad took it from his cell phone.
“Hello. I am so honored to be participating in the program today. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in March of 2011 and, though I’ve been out of treatment and surgeries for almost a year, I am still trying to find out what being a survivor means. I still feel fear and sadness on a regular basis, as I’m sure many of you can relate to, and that makes calling myself a survivor difficult.
During last year’s luncheon, they played a video profiling my story and featuring the wonderful people at the Breast Care Center. I was so grateful to be able to share my story, and I hope that people found it powerful. The video described that my cancer was genetic, from the BRCA 1 gene mutation passed down to me by my mother, who unfortunately passed away from the disease when I was just 3 years old.
For me, the most moving part of watching my video at last year’s luncheon was seeing my mother on the screen. She could have never known that her story would be broadcast to so many people she didn’t know, but people she had something in common with. And that really made me feel like the video was not just about me, but also about her. It was a way to tell a story that she never got the chance to tell.
I relate that experience to a similar experience I had in September. I was lucky enough to go on a trip with First Descents, an organization that takes brings young cancer patients and survivors on week-long adventure trips. I was rock climbing in the beautiful Colorado Rockies, and on our last night, we had a ceremony where we all floated a candle on a small pond to honor those who weren’t able to be with us. I, of course, thought about my mother, and I found myself thinking that I was on the trip both for myself and for her—because she never had the chance to be a young survivor and go rock climbing in Colorado.
I see a theme emerging in both of these examples. There are so many people who were not given the chance to survive, and that makes it so much more important that us survivors live each day like it is precious. We’re here to celebrate surviving, and I don’t think we can do that without remembering those that we’ve lost, and being grateful each day that we have the opportunity to continue experiencing all the beauty, joy, and even hardship that life brings us.
As much as I like philosophizing, I’m actually here to sing. I’ve been singing my whole life. As a child, I’m sure much to my parents’ chagrin, I belted out Disney tunes at any given opportunity. Much to my boyfriend’s chagrin, things haven’t changed much. During treatment, singing and listening to music provided a great tool for channeling my sadness and cheering me up.
I’ll be singing, “You Walk with Me,” from the musical The Full Monty. One of the characters in the show sings it at his mother’s funeral, so of course I think it is a fitting tribute to my own mother and to anyone who couldn’t be with us today, but who we still keep close to us to remind us that we have been given a gift that not everyone receives.”