I haven’t posted in a while–2 1/2 months, as I just discovered. Wow…that’s pretty bad, and I can’t believe it’s already October! I meant to post after my 5 year checkup (more on that in a post next week), but I wanted to sit on it for a few days and then things got busy and days turned into weeks, and I never did. I struggle sometimes with posting here consistently if I don’t feel that I have something to actually say that seems worth saying. I don’t want to add to the noise, but then I also know the best way to keep people reading is NOT by posting super infrequently.
Anyway, here we are. It’s October 2nd, and that means it’s a pretty big anniversary for a couple of reasons, so I thought I’d dedicate this post to anniversaries–for today and for my 5 year “cancerversary” (it’s a thing…don’t judge…cancer card).
To explain why October 2nd is important, I could just list the facts, but I’d rather take you back to one year ago (and beyond) since I haven’t done that here yet.
On October 2nd of last year, I was sitting in my apartment when I got a call from my dad. I didn’t hear anything on the other end, so I thought my phone was being dumb since it always takes me a couple of “hellos” for the person on the other end to hear me. However, I slowly heard a “Hannah…” that trailed off and I knew.
I knew that meant that Mema, my sweet grandma who’d been diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma metastasized to her brain, had breathed her last, and gone on joyfully to enter God’s presence.
My dad didn’t get out anything else. I said I was so sorry and asked if he was okay. He was leaving work and I asked him if he should pull over. He said no, so I stayed on the line in silence, sobs rising to my throat.
My roommate Janie sensed what must’ve happened, even though so few words were actually spoken. When my dad and I hung up, she let me cry for a while and then came in and hugged me. I skipped my class that started an hour later and met up with Madelyn to grieve together.
A few hours later, amidst calls with my family and memories filling up our McGinnis cousin group text, I checked my email to see this subject line from Westbow press: “congratulations!” The message informed me that my book, What in the World Are You Doing with Cancer?, had gone to the printer. It was officially published. I was officially published.
What a bittersweet day. I experienced more emotions last October 2nd than I do in a typical month. What made the timing of things that much more remarkable to me was that I’d dedicated my book to Mema, and she would never see that. The doctors said she had 3-6 months; she lasted 6 weeks. But I didn’t just dedicate my book to her because she’d been diagnosed with terminal cancer or because she had wept over me when I was diagnosed or because she’d given me a prayer bracelet that a friend had given her in her previous bout with breast cancer in the 80s.
Mema was the first person to ever tell me I should write a book.
Over Christmas break of my senior year—2008—only a month into my diagnosis, I saw Mema during our family Christmas celebration.
with Mema, my grandma to whom I dedicated my book, on Christmas day of 2008
She raved about my blog and how it was so readable and inspiring, and she told me she wasn’t sure if God was telling her this or not, but she felt like I needed to write a book. I laughed her words off, chalking them up to a grandma loving to brag on her grandchildren, but she held me and repeated her words: I needed to write a book.
I had never once thought about writing a book, and I certainly had not been thinking much about my cancer experience beyond the present, but I filed Mema’s “revelation” away, not forgetting it. As December melted away, I received positive feedback about my blog from others, and Mema’s words stayed in my mind. In the spring, I ran into a former writing professor on campus, and when I was bemoaning the lack of resources for young adults with cancer, she challenged me, saying, “Maybe you should do something about that.”
Good idea. But what? I tossed around the idea of starting a nonprofit, but then I quickly remembered that I have zero knowledge about such things. So I thought about using my actual skill set to do something about it—maybe I could tutor cancer patients who were out of school while sick. However, that, too, would require business savvy I do not have plus a significant population of potential students to get it off the ground.
What else could I do? Well, I could write. I could write and get people excited about young adult cancer. Then I realized I’m not a medical expert people should be coming to, and I remembered that people always say, “Write what you know.” I could take this advice and tell my story, writing what I knew best. It seemed a little bit like a “last ditch,” path-of-least-resistance way to do something about the dearth of cancer resources for twentysomethings, but then, in my morning devotions at the time, I started to see a pattern of verses in which the writers emphasize telling their stories to the glory of God.
Maybe, back in 2008, Mema’s idea had been—dare I say it—somewhat inspired? Prescient, maybe, and at least inspiring.
Truth is, I don’t think we appreciated Mema as she deserved. She sent me a card for every occasion, and even just because at times. I loved those cards—I’m definitely a letter writer—but I didn’t reciprocate as she deserved or let her know just how much I loved knowing she was “in my corner,” celebrating my highs and praying through my lows with me. I definitely didn’t appreciate her love well enough, and I obviously didn’t appreciate her conviction that I should write a book soon enough.
She told me to write in December of 2008; I started my book in April of 2010 and only then to have a record of the experience for myself, not because I set out to write a book. I finished writing by May of 2012. A year later, I was still dealing with revisions on the cover, acknowledgements, and front matter, and I was frustrated at what seemed like a pace of molasses. A full six months of that time was spent waiting on song licensing so I could reprint lyrics in my book. It was a long, slow process.
But it ended—it finally went to the printer and is on record as being officially published on October 2nd, 2013. The thing I’d been burdened by for three years was finally over. And it happened on that day, of all days, the day my Mema’s cancer took over.
I don’t want to overdo the import of things or say that October 2nd was cosmically aligned around my book. I mean, it’s never gonna be a best-seller, and I am fully aware of and okay with that. I know my own smallness, in a sense. However, while my book was a way of telling the story of God’s work in my life, so it was ultimately “for” Him, I felt like “for Mema” was an appropriate dedication for my book, and today seemed like a good time to honor her and explain that.
So today, I celebrate Mema. I celebrate the 1 year anniversary of What in the World Are You Doing with Cancer? becoming a reality. I praise God for the part Mema played in that story and process, and I praise Him for all He’s done through my story in this past year. And, I praise Him in advance for all He continues to do through and with it.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
Hannah