I believe that all of my beliefs about hope, faith and love are contained in my most favourite and inspirational (for me at least) quote by Eleanor Roosevelt.
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. You gain strength, courage and confidence from every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Actually, most of my favourite quotes are from Eleanor Roosevelt – she was gracious, honest, opinionated, energetic, compassionate and intelligent. This one, however is most important to me as it has taken through some diffiult time.
I hear people all the time repeating the ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ and every time I hear it, I replace it in my mind with this one. Why? Because I believe that that’s not true, I think sometimes what doesn’t kill you, knocks the crap out of you. BUT, if you can look back and remember that you got through it, or you did it, or you said it, it gives you the confidence in your ability to go forward.
Faith, hope and love – all things we can’t see but in times of struggle or crisis, we work to hold onto them to get us through. When I repeat this quote in my mind, it reminds me that I can do whatever this thing is, I can face whatever this fear is, I can get through!
There is nothing like a cancer diagnosis to cause you to re-examine your values and beliefs. What is most important to me? What did I long to do but haven’t done? Who do I want to see and talk with? How am I going to clean up all this crap that I’ve accumulated so my kids don’t have to do it? (sorry but I think about this one a lot).
I don’t mean by this that I am planning to die right away or that I am not planning on doing everything possible to heal and recover, but these questions are still there. I’ve found that I have no regrets about travel, vacations or seeing parts of the world I haven’t seen – that doesn’t seem to be any priority at all for me. I don’t have a bucket list nor do I have any inclination to make one. I do find that seeing, talking to, hugging my family and spending time with them is most critical to me.
This whole experience has brought us closer in that we talk more often, we remember how much we love each other and what were once annoying habits or words, we all seem able to let go easily. It’s just a reminder of what’s important.
And just for the record, I’ve partially cleaned one closet and a few boxes. It’s a start!
