As this year draws to a close, I am grateful for the things learned and am learning, for the things survived and am surviving, for the journeys that are continuing and the chapters that I’m hoping to complete in the near future. This year I began with a willingness to embrace what may come, finding hope and peace in whatever would be. Little did I know that my family and myself would face challenges of health crises and uncertainty. I entered this year thinking the worst had passed. We had gained a knowing of how to continue in a world with Covid and the gift of vaccines and awareness. My job stress had leveled out with the appointment of a manager I trust and respect. I was finding great joy in the work I am doing, and my family seemed to be in a stable, enjoyable place.
I’ve written previously, March hit and things drastically changed in my personal life. Then in August, I found out I had breast cancer and that chapter began to be written and will continue into 2024. I end 2023 in a physical state of pain but an emotional and mental place of hope. I end 2023 in a spiritual place of great joy, peace and deepening awareness of and connection to the Divine. My integrated understanding of God’s presence, love and peace in my life has led me to places of spiritual healing and wholeness.
Truths I have learned this year have centered around my constant need for certainty and control. I have experienced much of this year in a place of waiting, unknowing, and lament. I have had to lean into very uncomfortable feelings centered around how undeserving of others gifts and help I believe I am. Being vulnerable is something I easily hope and invite from others and consider it a gift when I’m able to care for them in those spaces. My own vulnerability I have experienced as difficult when I’m asked by others to share as they hold those safe spaces for me.
The first of December I shared my cancer diagnosis with the staff I have come to call family and have received incredible support, care and gifts. I have been incredibly humbled by their love and giving of themselves to me. I cannot express the amount of gratitude and love I have felt from their kindness, generosity and thoughtfulness. Not only in their giving to me but my husband and daughter also. I started this year with the words healing and home, and I end the year with healing and hope and also being literally confined to my physical home.
When I reflect on my thought of what home means and has meant for this year, I know that I have found home in all aspects of my life this year. First, I have found home in my family, not just my daughter and husband, but in my parents, my brothers, and my extended family who have shown up for me in the last several weeks with prayers, meals, care and support. My husband’s brother has come to stay with us for a bit to help with our daughter and be present for whatever we may need. It’s been a comfort and joy to have him drive all the way from Texas and the support of his wife and my husband’s parents as they care from there.
I have found a unique home in my biological mother, her husband and my biological half-sister. My birth mother sharing her breast cancer diagnosis several years ago, along with all three of her sisters and my awareness of my risk and starting mammograms early. It’s baffling to me that none of us carry the BRCA gene yet we all are survivors, losing one along the way. We have recently been in touch supporting and encouraging each other as we continue to journey as survivors.
I have also found home in my work. My department, with profound stability finally felt mid year, I have found myself joyfilled and happy to continue the work I love- working as a chaplain, supporting moms and families through perinatal loss, helping facilitate the SHARE Upstate support group, and working alongside a team of incredible nurses and doctors that not only care for and give to their patients but also to each other as we journey way alongside each other day in and day out. I have felt wonderful support from my department leadership and feel able to take the time I need away to heal and care for myself, not worrying about coverage and the hospital for the first time in a very long time. The gift this is to be in my personal home focused on my family and myself.
I am honestly grateful for this year. I’m grateful for those that have journeyed with me in my darkest hours. Those who have sat with me as I engaged my own sense of mortality and death and encouraged me with hope and living in the here and now. I’m grateful for doctors who allowed me space to discover what actions were best for me and a family who had helped me and supported me through this and will continue. I’m grateful for the Hallow app that I used this Advent season. The meditations and music allowed me to remain centered and calm, while also gaining clarity, growing spiritually and helping confirm my foundation and hope.
I honestly do not know what 2024 will bring- I hope healing, physically and being declared cancer free. However, I am ready and I am willing to embrace 2024 with all I bring and hope, knowing that the love, support and care of my family, both personal and professional, my friends, my faith, and my own self will be present and firmly planted this coming year.
To 2024, let’s journey onward….
The Journey Home 