This was the morning that my mother’s body finally gave out from battling multiple forms of cancer since her diagnosis. Cancer never took her smile, sense of humor or her positive attitude even while battling this disease at the same time as my 16 year old sister from 1996 until my mom’s passing in 97. Having my sister in my life made figuring out how to adapt to life without being her son a less challenging journey. I had hoped we’d have more time to figure this out together but unfortunately my sister’s cancer journey was leading her closer to being with my mom again instead of the path I was learning to navigate. God’s plan was greater than ours when my sister passed from her battle in April of 2000. What I’ve learned over the years since then is that so many of us with our families, friends, and other loved ones have had their own unique stories of how this disease has altered their lives. I’m always very deeply touched when I hear the success stories of those who are or have battled their own battles and have came out the other side as survivors! Hearing that gives me hope for the present and future. As millions of dollars continue to go into cancer research for treatments I pray for a cure for all cancers in my lifetime. What I feel is as important if not more is that I want much more effort to be done to find the actual causes to this disease especially for what is approved by the FDA for what’s in the food we eat and what we drink. I feel this would be a major step forward in minimizing the amount of causes by eliminating some of their sources to begin with. All I wish is that we’d attack the cause as much as we do the cure. If this would save even one more person It’d be worth it.

I’m thankful to choose to celebrate my mom’s life today as I have in many year’s past. I spent 23 years with her influencing my life by being here and now 25 years remembering her memories and lessons that she taught me. I’ve adjusted away from grief years ago because it’s better for your mental health to let it go if you’re ready too. Choose to be happy because that’s what time was like with them so why would they want me to be any different without them? I’d hope if you’ve read this far down that the sharing of this story can help you move past your own loss. At some point you have to be willing to put the heavy weight of grief down behind you and move forward. I think the greatest gift we can give the one’s we’ve lost is to honor them with appreciation of our own lives that we’re blessed to wake up with today. Our reason to exist today is to simply make a positive impact on each other’s lives in community. If you can do that very thing then we are truly getting value out of our purpose for living. With that being said, have fun doing it!