Dear Stephen and Alexandra,

At the end of February, I was handed the most unlikely of gifts:  the gift of remission from Stage IV cancer.

Just six months earlier, I couldn’t have imagined achieving this milestone.  When I heard “We found a mass,” I was in complete and utter disbelief.  After surviving what were called one in a million injuries from that ridiculous car accident, lightning struck again.  Seriously, God, what the heck.  My indignity with God was coupled with the equal and opposite reaction:  “Well, what the heck, why not.”

I couldn’t have written a more ludicrous new chapter in our lives.  Surely, this time, my number was going to be up.  My nine lives were over.  One can’t dance with fire too many times without getting burned.  It’s like living a risky lifestyle.  Sky diving, climbing Mount Everest, propositioning porcupines, doing drugs, drinking and driving, or for you kids, texting and driving.  Sooner or later, and most likely sooner, you are going to run out of luck.

Having skirted disaster one time before, I was at first simultaneously mad at and in awe of God.  But, then my thoughts were and continue to be tempered by what I believe in my heart to be absolutely true:  God didn’t create a car wreck or put cancer in my body any more than God makes children sick or starves the masses, or lets families be torn apart by war.

This is simply our messy world.  Many of the messes we create ourselves, individually and collectively as a society.  Others result from the simple randomness of being living beings in a physical world.  Life, then, is messy.     

God is the parent in all of this, rejoicing in our highs and mourning with our lows.  And, like every resourceful parent, God simply walks with us.  When we’re down on our knees, God sits with us.  Maybe God even enables some key people to enter our lives, not to change the outcome, but simply to transform our journeys. 

I don’t know for certain.  But I’ve had too many signs to believe in anything but an all-encompassing Heaven helping us along our way, whatever destinations await us. 

So, I received this unbelievable gift:  remission.  I was on a high for days, maybe even weeks.

And then it came all crashing down.  Intermittent depression.  Guilt for not feeling unilaterally grateful for and excited about this extra time.

Worry.  When will it end, who will take care of the two of you if I am no longer here?  Twice hit by lightning, I am primed for a third strike. 

Isolation.  The cancer world I came to know in this last year is no longer my day-to-day world.  I can’t and don’t want to stay in the “cancer world,” but neither do I know how to go back to the normal world. 

My old career is, effectively, gone.  What I identified with so strongly, working on behalf of Beacon Children’s Hospital, ended not only a chapter, but seven years of my life.  That it coincided with this really shitty cancer made the loss even more acute and painful.   

Right now, I am fully a member of our family but, also, of that in-between place I call purgatory.  Everything else is different.  The world goes on at warp speed and I’m trying to figure out exactly when and where I jump back in, both professionally and personally.

Being in remission after such a devastating diagnosis reminds me of experiencing parenthood for the first time. 

New moms are pregnant for months.  Chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries take months.

New moms are handed this mystical creature.  Cancer patients get the call and are handed more time to live, a new life.  In my case, that call began with, “I have a little bit of good birthday news for you…”

Pure joy, gratitude, and awe, as a new mom sees her baby for the first time.  Pure joy, as remission means no more barbaric treatments.  Real hope that the nausea gets better.  No more nights in the hospital.  Real hope for healing. 

Then the tide shifts:

Whether it be a new baby, a new career, or keeping cancer at bay, each has both magic and the responsibility of forever.  The mystical being that is our firstborn child has been transformed into an around-the-clock eating, pooping, and crying machine.  The joy of remission is transformed into doubt.  How can I be feeling physically and emotionally awful in the presence of such good news?  I am just like the new parent:  swayed by magical moments but exhausted and engulfed by the magnitude of forever.  Just like children are forever, the surveillance of cancer is forever.  In this first few months, the surveillance is also frequent and never far from mind.  

Worry.  The first time the newborn baby gets a fever, new moms are quickly overwhelmed with all-encompassing worry and fear.  When you, Alexandra, got your first fever, my mind raced through every awful thing it could possibly be.  So it is post-cancer:  any potential sign the cancer has returned: shortness of breath, the side stitch that won’t go away, blisters covering my body.  Is this some kind of allergic reaction, shingles, an infection from a weakened immune system? 

Fear.  A baby’s first steps, followed by a fall, and the most plaintive of cries as he has his first brush with autonomy.  Post-cancer, going back to work in a new job.  I can’t imagine that first day.  I don’t want to be different, or have people look at me with pity or distrust in my abilities.  Or, “I’m glad it was her and not me.”  I want to be invisible when I jump back in, normal, just like everyone else.

In between a new mother’s exhaustion, or in the post-destruction of cancer, each of us experiences the same dichotomy of feelings: intermittent joy, disbelief at our good fortune, fear, sadness, a new identity, a higher calling, love of mankind, and unexpected gifts as we find fellowship with other new moms or, other cancer survivors.

So if you see a new mom struggling, know that her baby didn’t come with an instruction manual.  This lack of a roadmap is what creates the highs, lows, and detours to places parents find to be both desolate and magical.

If you see me struggling to move forward, know that there is no instruction manual.  As any new mom will do, I will be happy, overwhelmed, and worried all at the same time.  I will question every decision I make, from nutrition, to exercise, to sleep, to re-entering the world of the healthy. 

And, behind every smiling face, know that a new mom is never without worry.  Likewise, a cancer survivor is never far from thinking about the next scans and whether that one phone call will bring freedom or a return ticket to the rollercoaster of the cancer world.

There are moments when I worry about having brought you two into such an uncertain world.  A single mom.  Worldwide acts of discrimination and hatred.  Rising political unrest.  A rapidly changing environment which could culminate in natural disasters unseen by modern man. 

But, kiddos, for every negative, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of positives:  medical breakthroughs, the bonding and strengthening of communities in the face of discrimination, a child taking another child’s hand.  Gardens, a diverse and beautiful world, places to explore, the sun shining on your faces and the wind blowing in your hair.  Finding a career which lights your soul on fire.  Dogs.  Ice cream.  Bunnies.  Friends.  Family.  Real roller coasters, which you can get on…and then, minutes later, adrenaline flowing, get off, breathless, smiling, exhilerated. 

For every solo artist drawing hatred in our world, there are countless choruses singing love.  As you face the joys and sadnesses, highs and lows in your life, look for the choruses to follow.  You will always find them and you will be carried, unquestioningly, as your heart and mind bounce back and forth, finding old paths and discovering new.  That you are twins is your own personal chorus:  you have each other.  You live with your best friend.  You always have each other’s backs.   

Love, Mom