Middle Class Cancer And Other Natural Disasters: A Love Letter... By Shannon M. Mulvey

This is the story of one woman's journey -- a woman who walked out of work on a summer Friday afternoon to go to a routine mammogram, a medical appointment which she assumed would be like any other, just something to cross off her list of busy things to do, so she could get back to taking care of the trivial business of being a working mother. Not trivial you say? It is to her now. Oh, the working part is not trivial, the mothering part is not trivial. But take both of those things away and what is left? Imagine an appointment that changed the course of her life so greatly that immediately going back to work was not an option. That she would see her kids with expressions on their faces that she had never seen on them before, expressions of despair and fear. Imagine standing before her world as it crumbled and pretending to be strong, because her kids had to know she would not back down from the unexpected crisis. She doesn't know how she got through that moment of telling them for the first time. There will forever be a line in their family's sand, the "before the breast cancer diagnosis" and the "after breast cancer diagnosis."This is the story of a bad dream, the one that makes you wake up gasping for breath and you take a few moments to realize -- oh, thank God, it was only a dream. And you settle yourself back to sleep a little cozier and a little more thankful for what you have. Except this time it wasn't a bad dream. It was reality and it needed to be faced. There was no choice. Stand when you are weak, get control of your heart beating out of your chest. Tell your kids, "Your life will not change. I will not change. I will still be the same mom telling you to pick up your dirty socks. You will still get to your swim practices, your Little League games, but it might not be the way it has always been for a little while." Change is good they say. No, she disagrees. This change was not good. At least not initially and not for a long time afterward. She had spent nearly twenty years as a holistic practitioner. She had spent thirteen years as a natural childbirth instructor. She was used to teaching, hoping that her clients left her with a little golden nugget of knowledge that they didn't have before. That daily goal was now an immediate loss. She had to be taken care of now. The impatience, the frustration showed and she knew it did. Something had been stolen from her, which could not be given back. She heard alot of people say, "They say God doesn't give you what you can't handle," but she knew in her heart she wasn't handling it with the grace and sophistication she would have liked. But how could she when she was on the floor? Another phrase that people take out of their pocket in times of distress -- "that which does not kill you makes you stronger." A person on their knees has no idea how to reply to this platitude. They don't feel strong, they didn't ever ask to prove their strength. Another gem -- "everything happens for a reason." People have no idea what to say and she can appreciate their attempts to make her feel better. Nobody ever promised her a rose garden. And, almost two years later, she can almost see a glimmer of why this may have happened for a reason, but she doesn't accept it as a happy accident. She almost doesn't accept it at all. It reeks of unfairness. And she tried to look for the silver linings. She really did. She has found them and continues to every day.

• | Author: Beautiful Self, Shannon Mulvey
• | Publisher: Independently published
• | Publication Date: Jul 06, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 171 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1077116195
• | ISBN-13: 9781077116191