Happy Cancerversary! Every day cancer free is worth celebrating.

You never forget the moment you hear the verdict.

Cancer.

It’s like the game of your life is thrown into the air and all the pieces go flying. I’m not sure they ever truly land.

And that’s a good thing.

After cancer, you never quite trust that a headache is just a headache, not a brain tumor.

And that’s a good thing.

You never quite trust that a back ache is just a little arthritis, not bone cancer.

And that’s a good thing.

You never again take your health or your life for granted.

And that’s a good thing.

You never quite trust that you will get to grow old.

Yes, GET TO.

Everything after cancer is a GET TO.

I get to be 64. I get to have gray hair. I get to be a grandparent, a mom, a wife, a friend.

I was one of the lucky ones. I got endless bonus years, years I never counted on, years I never take for granted. Years my friends Monica and David and Erika and Jim and Bill didn’t get. Cancer cut all their lives short.

Today is my 23 year cancerversarry. You know I’m celebrating, even if it’s just me and a bowl of Mitchells chocolate ice cream.

The truth is, I celebrate it every day. After getting diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998 at age 41, every day is a gift. There are no bad days.

There were back then.

That day my hair fell out in my morning Cheerios.

That day we finally had to shave my head and I faced the world bald.

That day I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water.

That day I stayed curled in a ball on the couch to stop the pain in my gut as the chemo seemed to eat me away as it ate the cancer away.

That day I first saw my chest with no breasts, just two rows of stitches that together left a V scar that reminds me of my victory over cancer.

All those bad days? They gave me these good days.

Cancer showed me I could do hard. My friend Ro Eugene used to say, “It’s hard, but you can do hard.” She was right, even as she lost her hair, and her life, to cancer.

I hit cancer hard with surgeries, chemotherapy, six weeks of daily radiation and a double mastectomy. I’m grateful for the researchers and clinical trial volunteers who created my chemo formula: Cyatoxin, Adriamycin and 5-FU. I think every chemo drug should have FU in its name.

Surgeon Leonard Bryzozowski, oncologist Jim Sabiers and chemo nurse Pam Boone saved my life. And my daughter and husband held me up, telling me I looked beautiful even when I was bald and sick and weighed just 105 pounds and didn’t feel at all beautiful.

Yes, I just want to remind you, life is beautiful.

Even amidst the ugliness of politics and pandemics and racism and sexism and disasters and disappointments.

Life is still good.

And the parts that aren’t? You break them into do-able parts. You get through 15 minutes of crap, then another 15 and pretty soon, you can handle an hour then a day.

You get up, dress up and show up, even when you don’t feel up to it. Some days all I could do was move from one couch to the chair. One day I walked down the block and couldn’t make it home. I had to call for a ride. The radiation had zapped me. I felt older then at 41 then I do today at 64.

Move a muscle, change a thought. Some days that’s all the action you can take, but it’s still action.

And from now on, all those precious candles you merely dust? Burn them. Burn them all.

That fancy blouse with the tag still on? Wear it. Wear it now.

That fancy seashell soap in the bathroom? Let your spouse actually use it. Let your kids use it. Use it up. All of it.

No saving anything for a “special occasion.” Life, right now, is special enough.

And no, it isn’t always fair. Life isn’t always fair.

We’ve all lost people we love. I’ve lost friends and dear cousins, Nancy and Kevin and Rusty to cancer. I outlived my aunts Maureen, Ronnie and Francie who died of cancer at 42, 44 and 58. They never got to reach my age.

So today, when I look in the mirror and see my grey hair and wrinkly neck and all those age spots staging a coup, I’m going to be tender and surrender in gratitude for them all.

They aren’t signs of old age. They are all signs of life.

A life I never counted on getting.

A life I will never, ever, take for granted.