A Note to My Niece

 Dear Sweet Pea –

Yea I know. I don't know why I call you that. It is just that "Sweet Pea" has been my nick name for you since your birth. I appreciate your allowing "its" existence even into your teens. I am hoping you will always accept it. My mom called me "Mouse". When I would ask her why, she couldn’t explain it either. I stopped asking her once I realized the “why” was not as important as the “how” hearing her call me that made me feel. She was the only person in my life who ever called me "Mouse". Not my brother, my grandparents, not any friends, nor my father ever called me that. This tells me she only used the term when inside our safety cocoon of me and your Daddy. No one else in our family ever used the term. And just a very few people ever heard her say it. And so, whenever I heard her say "Mouse", I lit up inside. I felt loved…special. I hope "Sweet Pea" does the same for you.

This note is written to you during your 16th year, on the day of my 57th birthday, 1 day from the date our country hosts its 4-year presidential inauguration, all of which falls 4 days short of my 4th anniversary of being diagnosed with cancer.  Little did I know that four years ago as I was exiting my 53rd year, I would be entering my second chance to get life right.  A second chance because a cancer diagnosis can bring your life into focus in an instant. What I felt important in my first 52 years fell quickly away to just the core of living. Being mindful of where you are, of what you are experiencing. Walking in the rain and not getting wet. Experiencing cancer allows you to appreciate walking across the street for ice cream on a cold, rainy day. Cancer gave me, at least, a second chance to get it right.

So, on this 4th Anniversary - a day I feared I might not reach - I want to share with you a bit of wisdom I've gleaned during my second chance. 

Your life will be full of joy and heartbreak. It just will. 

In your first 16 years in this universe you have already felt the joy and the promise of life. You are loved, safe, well-fed, and cared for my two amazing dads. You are surrounded by a village of people who love and care about you. Sadly, you have also been witness to the pain, sorrow, and hate of life that a global pandemic, inequality, inequity, disinformation, and radicalization can let escape from under a rock. As they say, democracy is not perfect. In fact, much like life – it’s pretty messy. 

In addition to wanting so badly to live long enough to see democracy turn the page of another inauguration - a course correction of sorts - I have spent considerable time during the last four years of this second chance-life identifying and focusing effort and energy on what on life’s expedition I am able to control – have some influence over - and then homing my skills in the healthy processing and managing those things. you know, I meditate every day. I make it a point to hear the birds, to feel the breeze, to see the flowers. I am hopeful I remain healthy. To be present of mind. To breathe. Learning how to be mindful of the space around me and accepting that space as it presents itself on any given day. 

I have learned that how you move thru the challenges, how you experience disappointment, as well as how you acknowledge and celebrate the triumphs is what is of life's significance.

Believe in the power of being more present with the experience of change - the experience of life. In lieu of immersing into the "what ifs" and "what might happen". Be intentional about your awareness of the here and now, it will help bring into focus what is important. Practice to be more deliberate about what you focus your precious attention on - and what not. This has played a large part in my survival. To carry additional burdens that exist only in your mind, the burden of what might happen, is harmful to you and to those around you. And, in fact rarely changes outcomes.

As you know for the past four years, the url for my blog has been – now cover your eyes – “fuckemboth.com”. One of the “both” obviously being cancer. The other being the basis for the first. I have said to you before, I believe the stress and gut-wrenching heartache I personally felt as a result of the 2016 presidential election, coupled with my inability to manage and process the emotions and physical indicators that that event created in my life, produced a toxic mix within me that rooted itself in cancer.

Now four years later, as I join the nation in marking an official end - by swearing-in an official beginning - there are many emotions and thoughts. The date this nation inaugurates its President every four years, January 20, forever signifies an anniversary of an event I did not know I would live to see again. I am grateful to witness the end to what - due to its beginning - created such an important and horrific life milestone for me. And now - onward! I am marking, in part, my new beginning by unveiling the new url for this blog: www.ISurvivedEmBoth.com  

And so, Sweet Pea, as we both enter our next milestones (your next sixteen years, and my next four years 'til the next presidential inauguration), know this. Life is gonna be really blissful at times and really shitty (excuse me) at times. You may or may not have much control or influence over some of what will come your way. But no matter what life throws at you, I implore you to live it. Every bit of it. Endeavor to recognize the good and the bad. Go get your milestones, celebrate them, and move onward.

Hopefully you never have to go through an experience to earn an extra chance, so live like this is your one chance. Bravely, experience – really FEEL – the experience of what life throws at you, what life offers you, and what you make of life. Be mindful, be intentional, most of all be kind. Life is suppose to be experienced fully, truly, and completely. I plan on being right beside you, for each and every milestone ahead of us. 

Love,

ME