I lost someone dear to me last week and I cried for almost a half an hour after I found out. Then I cried again today. When you are a cancer fighter, and if you’re like me who has battled cancer more than once, you become close to some if not all of your healthcare providers, especially if you see the same people year after year. Dr. Menaldi was one of those people. If you don’t know already, I was a long time singer when I got cancer the first time. I sang at local events, church, radio jingles, was on a tv show, and was involved in musical theater. After my first surgery for cancer, my right laryngeal nerve was cut which paralyzed my right vocal cord. Singing I thought, was done. My vocal rehab team consisted of Dr Rubin~ laryngologist, Dr Menaldi~speech pathologist, and Marie~vocal coach. Dr Menaldi worked tirelessly trying to help me find a new way of speaking and breathing with only one functioning cord. Eventually, she trained me to be able to sing again albeit not the same. She pushed me and motivated me and when one thing wasn’t working she researched and tried some of her own methods to get me and my voice back, or close to the way it was.
Cancer came back twice after that first time, both times in my neck, both affecting my voice again so I worked with my voice team for several years. They had become my family, my go to, my shoulders to cry on every time the cancer came back but also the ones who stayed positive, encouraging, and who pushed me to keep working to get my voice back. Last Friday, Dr Menaldi died of cancer. I hadn’t spoken to her in awhile. Last summer we reconnected after I found out her cancer had come back but I didn’t get to say goodbye. Instead this past summer, knowing her cancer was bad, she encouraged me in my path and in my current cancer journey. I cried because it brought back my past fight, seeing her two sometimes 3 times a week for 4 years. I cried because I didn’t get to say goodbye or encourage her in her fight. I cried because it made me scared about my cancer. I cried because it was a reminder of how truly brief our lives are here on earth.
We are in a pandemic and the holiday season is among us. Yes it’s different and we are all grieving, but life is so fragile and there is so much to be thankful for. My daughter and I were talking about things we miss because of pandemic and she mentioned that she missed travel. Then she said she misses landing and seeing my face and how excited I looked when I saw her (she’s been on mission trips to Africa, Haiti, India, and studied abroad in Jordan). Toni Morrison said, ‘When a child walks in a room…do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.’ Clearly that’s what she remembers, but aren’t we all looking for that? I think when this pandemic is over we will all be looking at each other with no masks on and magic in our eyes knowing we got through.
Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, lost everything and saw death all around him. After his horrendous ordeal he said, ‘When we have reasons to rejoice, we know how.’ Read that again. He knew how to rejoice and be grateful because he saw what he saw. After surviving he was grateful for EVERYTHING. This pandemic cannot even come close to being compared to what he went through but because of it, how much more grateful will you be when you can see your friends, when you can have a big party, when you can sit for a meal in a restaurant, when you can fully hug someone without anxiety, etc.. I have Stage 4 cancer. When I get caught up in the nonsense of life, I remember, I’m alive and my cancer is stable. My thing is time. When I get to spend time with loved ones I rejoice and I know how. Time is everything to me because I know how precious it is.
I’m not ashamed to say I watched the teen show ‘Dash and Lily’ on Netflix. Although it wasn’t exactly deep or brain stimulating, there was one line that stuck with me: ‘We see what we look for…magic.’ I always say there is magic in each moment and I believe it, but we won’t see it if we’re not intentionally looking. Always be looking because even now, there’s magic.
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