When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the struggle and resilience faced during a battle with cancer, ultimately emphasizing the value of life.
Regina Brett's experience highlights the harrowing journey of dealing with a life-threatening illness. Despite the physical and emotional toll of treatments, her assertion 'Ah, but I got to live' reveals a profound appreciation for life itself. This quote serves as a reminder that even in our darkest moments, the will to survive and cherish life prevails.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a cancer awareness event to inspire hope.
When you have cancer, it's like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn't want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.
Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
The only gift my dad ever bought me is still in my jewelry box. It died at 10 minutes to 11 decades ago, but the gold Caravelle watch keeps my dad alive. A watch isn't about keeping time. It's about stopping it.
Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an 'Owner's Manual' to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.
Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death.
Cancer is messy and scary. You throw everything at it, but don't forget to throw love at it. It turns out that might be the best weapon of all.
There was no way to laugh anymore, to love, to care, and there was a sense of guilt in having survived when others had been killed. I turned into a worse workaholic than I had already been by trying to work myself into the ground.
Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn't give up, Ben; she's still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She's a father working while cancer eats away his insides, to bring home one more pay check. She's a twelve-year-old trying to mother her brothers and sisters because mama had to go to Heaven. She's a switchboard operator sticking to her post while smoke chokes her and fire cuts off her escape. She's all the unsung heroes who couldn't make it but never quit.
Anyone who suggests that coming back from suicidal despair is a straightforward journey has never taken it.
Sadie Kane here. If you're listening to this, congratulations, you survived doomsday.
Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage.
We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind... The time is always right to do the right thing. Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.
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