The bottom line

I am obsessed with this picture.

It's my daughter, walking on the beach in the Canary Islands.  I love the power of her stride.  I love that she seems to have everything that she needs in that bag.  I love that I don't know where she is walking from, or where she is walking to.  And I love that she clearly knows - even if it's nowhere in particular.  She knows why she is on the earth.  And most of all, I love that she is healthy and strong.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, my daughter was not yet five years old.  She didn't really know what to make of my cancer.  None of us really did.  She's very relational though - making sense of things by reaching out to people.  Once we were in line at the supermarket and when it was our turn to check out she turned to me and asked, "Mom, can I tell her?"  "Sure," I said.  She looked at the cashier and said, "My mom has cancer."  She has always known what she needs to do to help herself.

Anyway, the point of this flashback is that at that time, with two young children, I found myself searching for my bottom line.  The condition under which this cancer would really not be acceptable at all.  I assumed that the bottom line was death.  I mean, clearly, that would not work.  I had a five-year-old and an eight-year-old, and I had much more mothering to do.  Plus, their dad and I weren't together anymore, so how could I possibly leave them in the hands of my ex-husband and his wife?

And then I realized that I could.  Of course I could.  It would suck in the hugest way possible.  It would be traumatic.  They would be unbearably sad and confused.  But ultimately they would be fine.