Happy Endings

Today is a MUCH better day...at least right now...which is morning. This afternoon I am getting my COVID booster so things might change. Oh well. I don't want to feel super for too long!!! LOL

My post today is a quickie. You are probably sighing and saying, "Well, finally. She's got a lot of hot air." It's not that. It's just that sometimes I only feel good enough to write for a while and then I'm done for the day. That's just the way it goes. Today I want to quilt a while and write a few patterns. So shorter is better.

I have many who check in to find out how I am doing. I love that. I also write the blog so you all know what I am experiencing as it plays out. And you have an opportunity to file some of what I am saying so you may benefit from it in the future or share it with an individual drowning in a cancer challenge of their own.

Interestingly, sadly, I have never been terribly empathetic with cancer patients because I knew nothing of the challenges accepted and confronted. I could empathize with foster parents, abused and divorced wives as well as women whose husband was a child molester. But I knew nothing about the cancer experience. Now that I do, there's something I have come to love...and it is happy endings.

I have always been a sap for happy endings. I LOVE Christmas movies because I so relish the perfect stories with Christmas tea and cookies in the holidays. Those movies incidentally will sustain me through this month of December. (Good time of year to have cancer? Hmmm. There is no good time!)

Where am I going with this? When I meet someone in the quilt shop or the grocery store or even church, and they tell me about Uncle Bob or Sister Catherine or Grandma Bea, I pause and listen, hesitant about their ending. When the story presented demonstrates no hope, I cringe, panicked that it will hook the scared little kid within me.

Often now (I have learned the hard way), I will interrupt those stories to ask, "Does this have a happy ending? If not, let's talk about something else."

I invite everyone to keep that in mind when chatting about cancer. While each one of us with cancer has a different journey to pursue, we all want to focus on an ending that is hopeful and filled with joyful friendships in one way or another. Your experiences are welcome, and happy endings are so much more inspirational and uplifting. I am grateful for the faith-full positives you share with me. You calm my inner child. Where would I be without you?

Signed in love, The quilting cancer girl