RivkA has died.

Our old friend RivkA lost her fight with metastatic breast cancer today.  She and I didn’t always agree on things, but we agreed on the need to SPEAK OUT about this beast that is cancer, to keep working to tell people that LIFE DOESN’T END with a cancer diagnosis, and to help other women fighting their own battles.  Her time for words has ended now, but that doesn’t mean that her words will have had no impact.  I leave you with a link to a talk she gave in June 2009, which she asked be reposted on her blog shortly before her death.

Please daven, pray, or whatever is appropriate in your faith tradition today for Rivka bat Yishaya and her family.

Link-up

I’d like to do a link-up post of all the words that you’ve written about breast cancer awareness month this year — whether you loved it, had difficulty with it, donated, and/or just remembered to check yourself and remind your friends and readers to check themselves as well.  It’s so important, and awareness goes so far beyond coloring things “pink.”  Your words make a difference.  A real difference.  If you’re a writer and blogged about it, if you talked to a friend, or if you did anything in your community (participated in an event, raised money, talked to your teenager about how to do a self-exam, printed out a flyer and posted it at the library…), would you please leave a comment here and I’ll write a big linky post Thursday night highlighting the AMAZING work that the moms and friends here do?  I’d like that.  I’d like that a lot.

I’ll be here, visiting every blog and reading every link.  It’ll get my mind off the chemo.

#chemo2010 status: Today is Cycle 4, Day 3 (of 6 cycles, 21 days each).  I feel pretty good, but I’m so very tired, and the soles of my feet are bright red and tingling.  184 pills down, 160 to go.

Edited to add:  Here are the breast cancer awareness posts I remember reading this month, off the top of my head.  Which other ones did you write and/or enjoy?

Amy, at TeachMama and on Shine: Talking to Kids About Cancer – @teachmama

Bonggam, at the YahooMotherBoard, is wearing and blogging 31 days of pink

Elaine, at Connor and Helen Grow Up: Avon’s Army of Women: Won’t You Join Me?

Florinda, at The Three R’s Blog, joined the Army of Women and posted about it at Weekend Review - @florinda3rs

Judy, at Just Enjoy Him, I used to get into the pink, and at Mothers With Cancer: October/Pinktober Thoughts and Feelings – @justenjoyhim

Laurie Kingston, at Not Just About Cancer and Mothers With Cancer: I Ran for the Cure, and writing about an interview with the author of Pink Ribbons, Inc: Letter of the Day

Leticia, at TechSavvyMama, about the American Cancer Society at Blogalicious and #beatcancer -@techsavvymama

Lorri Steer, at Mothers With Cancer: The Real Face of Breast Cancer

Lylah Alphonse at Work It, Mom! The 36 hour day: Think Before Buying Pink: – @workitmom

Marty, at Don’t Take the Repeats: Dear Cancer – @canape

Robin, at The Not Ever Still Life: I Believe, In Your Breasts and Mine – @noteverstill

Stella, at I Can’t Complain Any More Than Ususal and Mothers With Cancer: Lucky Patterns and Educate to Eradicate – @imstell

Stephanie Himel-Nelson, at Attain Fertility - @lawyermama

WorkoutMommy: What is Inflammatory Breast Cancer? -@workoutmommy

On burdens

I’ve started going to church again.  I know, friends from home may be appalled to hear I ever left, but the truth is I had a really bad experience when I got sick last time.  I grieved, and I cried, and I wondered how a good and loving God could let me get so sick and maybe even take a mother away from her babies, the little one just a few months old.  I railed, and I studied, and I questioned.  And I called my minister, the minister of the church I’d attended for years and years, and he had no answers.  He talked to me for 20 minutes, for which I’m grateful, and then he said, “I have to go, I’m leaving on vacation.”  “Will you call me when you return?” I asked.  And he agreed, but he never did call me again.  I called him when he returned, and again a week after, and again the week after that, as I got sicker and sicker and scared-er and scared-er.  And he never called again.

People from the church did call, months after that, and they put me on the prayer list and on the (gah!) Angel Tree, and I appreciated it, but I never quite let go the fact that I had been faithful and a churchgoer all my life, and when I needed my church most, when I needed my pastor to come visit and sit with me while I questioned, or reassure me where he could, or even call me back, he wasn’t there for me.

And I left the church. 

I never left God.  I never stopped believing, I never stopped praying, I never stopped teaching my children the stories of the Book, but I stopped going to church.  In fact, I only went there once after that, and nothing happened, and that was closure.

But this spring, something called me back.  I can’t say that it was any one thing exactly, but a confluence of factors.  A friend sharing her faith in Book Club, and talking with her — really talking — about the historical foundation of our beliefs and how they were reflected (or not) in The Red Tent.  Another friend sharing how much she loved her child’s kindergarten, and inviting me to a social event at the church.  I didn’t end up going, as I got sick instead, but I was touched by her thoughtfulness.  Our kindergarten plans falling through, as the public school we’d anticipated attending for years didn’t hold up under the scrutiny of a simple visit.  And then I got cancer.  Again.

And we needed — I needed — to be 100% sure that my children would be raised in the faith as I was, and that they would be surrounded by a supportive community if the worst happened, and I was no longer there to guide them.  My husband is strong and supportive and always there — but he would need support too.  We talked about looking again for a faith community, one with people who talked to each other as they passed, who banded together to support the elderly and those in need, and one where we could use our gifts and help others.  One that loved children, and had throngs of children on Sundays, and supportive parents who looked out for each other’s little ones.  One where we felt closer to God instead of farther away.

We found one.  On our very first visit, we found one.  We found a church with a service where children were truly welcomed.  Where babies were walked in the aisles and toddlers asked questions of their mamas and preschoolers held hands as they walked up to communion with their daddies.  Where children were not an afterthought or noises to be tolerated, but welcomed and loved as children of God.

We fell in love, and we found our church.  I signed up for new member classes, and we enrolled our children in the school.  We volunteered for the open house committee, for the Halloween party, and for lunch duty.  We’re all in.

And this Sunday, I join the church. 

I told you that to tell you this.  Last night, at Bible study, my friend Santa Maria (isn’t that a beautiful name?) asked a question about a verse she’d read that has always been one of my favorite verses. 

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whosoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” – Matthew 16:24-25

In this simple verse, I was reminded of something very important.  (And my atheist friends, and friends of other faiths, thanks for hanging in if you’re still here — I love you. You know that, right? I just need to work this out in words today.) 

Having faith doesn’t mean that we will never encounter evil.  It doesn’t mean that we’re so blessed we’ll never get sick, even very sick. It doesn’t mean we’ll never get depressed, suffer from post-partum depression, or be hurt by others.  It doesn’t mean that at all.  We all have our burdens, our difficulties, our struggles that we must find our way through.  (I can hear one of the adults from my youth saying with a sigh and a Southern accent, ”We all have our crosses to bear.”)  Is it hard to leave it behind and persevere?  Sure it is.  It’s hard beyond words.  And maybe, just maybe, that’s because some struggles are so big that we can’t just leave them behind and walk away. 

As hard as I try to pretend I’m healthy, I still sleep every afternoon so I can be awake to put my kids to bed at night.  As hard as I try to move beyond illness and talk about other things — anything else — with my friends, the cancer is still there, and still eating away at me even as we laugh or cry or chat about kindergarten drama.  But maybe that’s the point.  Maybe — and I’m no priest, so please bear with me as I work this out in my head and heart — maybe the burdens are still there.  But instead of focusing on them and wailing over what has happened to us, we are to instead take them up, sling them over our shoulders, and follow the path that He has laid for us. 

And with this post, I know I risk losing readers.  But I promised to always tell you the truth — my truth — about how cancer is changing me, and keeping that promise means more to me than pageviews.  Today, I’m taking the risk, slinging the cancer worries over my shoulder, and trying to return to the right path.  Thanks for listening, and for all the prayers that have been said on my behalf over the past few years.  I don’t deserve it, but I appreciate it with all my heart, and I wanted you to know that it’s working.

October

The world seems to come alive in October, as the wind begins to blow, gently at first, teasing the leaves who haven’t heard that it’s time to change. Then, all at once, as if the dogs’ evening howl spreads the message across the miles, the green begins to fade and the trees begin their dance with colors. First the maples tinge with orange, then the pears gather yellow about their branches. Finally the young exotic dons its coat of firey red, and our morning drive to school becomes a chorus of “ooh”s and “aah”s as we compete to find the prettiest, the most breathtaking, tree of the day. My children and I delight in seeing the colors take hold, competing in their brillance, creating a Fall mosaic more beautiful than the finest earthly artists, and one that each tree could never create on its own.

When I was a child, I never knew this cacophany of color. I grew up in Mississippi in the 1970s, a time and a place where just as the trees never changed (except green to brown, while we were sleeping), the people were slow to change as well. I remember — and this is only my memory, I don’t speak for others — I remember things being so concrete then. There were things that were Right. And things that were Wrong. And we were taught to know the difference. Everything was so clear-cut back then. We knew what was expected of us, and we either obeyed or rebelled, as fit with our own black-and-white, right-or-wrong, something-we-do-or-something-we-would-never-do moral code. Even the trees knew their place. They all obeyed the rule of nature and dutifully kept their demure green coats on until the exact day that they were told to turn brown and drop their leaves. Were there shades of brown? Not that I saw. There were no shades of grey in my youth that I remember. The trees were green, and then they were brown, and then they were bare, if they were so careless as to not be born a pine tree, with her evergreen gown around her.

I remember clearly — so clearly — my mother collecting the most vivid leaves she could find each Fall and taping them to the kitchen windows, bringing us a little of the magic she remembered from her youth and teaching us that there was more to see than green and brown in the world. It was something she did every year, and we “ooh”ed and “aah”ed along with her. Although I’m not sure my little brother and I ever could really see the magic that she saw in them, we tried. I remember trying. Daddy would lift us up to the window as very little children, and we gazed and squinted and tried to see the beauty that she did in the tinges of color that peeked out among the brown.

It wasn’t until I went away to college, far in the north (and by that, I mean Southern Virginia), that I truly saw what she had been trying to teach us. There was more to the world than the choices of Green or Brown. There were colors I had never imagined, as the oranges and yellows and reds danced with the green and brown, every color in the rainbow (except blue and purple. My children would like to know why not blue.) dancing in the trees, fluttering in the leaves as they pirouetted to earth in ways that crinkly brown Southern leaves never did. I fell in love with the trees, and the “north” where differing opinions could co-exist among good people, and I exulted in it, spreading my wings on Sunday drives in an old red convertible with my yankee friends, until the last rivulets of yellow danced in the Shenendoahs, and we put on jackets against the chill, preparing for snow in the valley.

Perhaps it was my strict Southern upbringing, perhaps it is an inborn cry for justice (I feel it, and I see in my young sons, who protest when classmates don’t follow the rules, for the sake of the rules themselves, and who fall apart when their routine is disrupted by a half-day or an impending field trip), but I rarely see shades of grey in the world. I see Right and Wrong and Injustice and OMG What Has To Be Done NOW. I end up SPEAKING UP rather than coexisting, and I know that doesn’t make me an easy friend. But it’s who I am and what I do. What I want to say here, and I don’t really know how, is that I APPRECIATE the efforts of all the people and organizations in the world bringing attention to a color that has already gotten a lot of attention this month: pink. There are shades of goodness in pink and shades that worry me. I realize now that they can co-exist, and that we can appreciate and enjoy all the shades of pink without declaring them ALL GOOD or all worthless, and that each shade of pink makes a contribution to the Fall mosaic around us that is bringing awareness and action to breast cancers, and is fighting the good fight in the way that feels right to them.

Today, I thank all the people and all the organizations formed across the globe that support the fight against breast cancer, that raise awareness, that raise funds for research, and that raise the spirits of those who struggle with this disease, in their own bodies or in that of the friends and family who they love. NEVER DOUBT that what you do makes a difference. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. And without the research and attention paid since the 1970′s War on Cancer, I would not even be alive right now, able to talk about the Fall colors outside my window, and the Fall colors of pink that are blanketing our new world.

Thank you for that. I heartily support the rainbow of efforts being made on my behalf and all of us who suffer from the breast cancers, as well as those pathfinders who have gone before. Here is (I hope) my last October post on pink, with links to my favorite organizations making a difference through their words, their campaigns, their dollars. Thank you, and please talk about your favorites in the comments if you’d like.

The American Cancer Society supports research and awareness on all the cancers – even the rare ones. Donate directly or go check out their newest campaigns: Choose You tips for healthy living, and online e-greetings for someone you know celebrating More Birthdays. Oh, and I did check out their NFL partnership and talked to ACS leadership: all of the pink you see at the games is being auctioned off by the NFL, with 100% of the proceeds going to ACS.

The Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation conducts research and spreads awareness of the cancer that has attacked me twice. They do no fundraising campaigns and have no pink partnerships (and therefore use 100% of donations for the mission and goals of the foundation, including education and research about this rare and deadly cancer). I have personally confirmed with the executive director, an IBC survivor and advocate — All checks marked “research” will be used DIRECTLY for research grants to find a cause — and a cure — for this terribly fast moving disease trying to kill me and my friends.  (Disclosure: this is where I’m donating this year, as a selfish investment in my own future and in memory of those we’ve lost.)  This group gives me hope.  Real hope that medical researchers will find a real cure, and that I will live to rock on the porch with my husband watching the changing leaves of Fall when we are old together. 

Living Beyond Breast Cancer is an incredible support organization that has monthly teleconferences, annual meetings in Philadelphia, and a wealth of web and printed resources available for breast cancer survivors, family, and friends. They’re good people, and their Charity Navigator rating is four stars, with 82% of their income spent directly on programming. Donate directly or participate in one of their pink promotions if that appeals to you – just choose a product that donates a substantial proportion of the proceeds (“10% of the purchase price,” “50% of the proceeds,” or a dollar figure that works for you – there are partnerships with White House/Black Market, Chico’s, and Rubbermaid).

Other pink shopping: don’t be afraid, just check the label and ask yourself a couple of simple questions like I do:  How much of what I’m spending on this goes to charity?  Is it a charity I recognize? Do the contents of this product contribute to cancer (check out these pages on Eli Lilly and Estee Lauder for examples)? And last – am I buying this product just because it has a pink ribbon on it — and if so, wouldn’t it be better to just send a check directly?  If the answer to the last question is yes, put it down, my friends, and send a check for that amount when you get home to the charity of your choice.  Please.

October is much more than breast cancer awareness month.  While I’ve written a lot about breast cancer this year, I’d also like to give a shout-out to my friends in the babyloss community and the domestic violence awareness community who are also celebrating (if celebrating can even be used in this context) awareness months, as well as those whose cancers get significantly less attention.  Let’s all keep using our words and our dollars to make a difference in the world, and remember Margaret Mead’s quote: ”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”