This was a week of dips and joys.
It was a week of heart splitting conversations and elation at good news.
It was seven days where, when I talked to friends about their days, they too were weak at the knees in both good and bad ways.
And because this month is also breast cancer awareness month, it's a continuous reminder to me about how fleeting life actually is and how we need to relish in all of its dips and joys and in betweens.
I'm a woman and I have boobs and I've had cancer (just a different kind) and my heart wrenches each day to think of all the women out there in the midst of their heartbreaking journey.
Or those who are putting themselves back together once they get their remission walking papers.
Or the ladies just starting out on the journey of surgeries and chemo, blissfully unaware of how the war they're about to wage will forever change them and show them just how limitless their strength is.
And then there will be those just like my Aunt, who at age 37 lost her fight, even though she held on with so much hope and light "through the awful" as long as she possibly could like the warrior she was.
So today I pray for the ladies.
All the ladies and their journey.
I sink deep into my whole self and thank my lucky stars for my current remission. And I pray ceaselessly for the health and the battles of the women out there still fighting.
Trust me, as a recovering Catholic, I can get my prayer on in big ways. So that being said,
I pray for their health.
I pray for their good news.
I pray for their kids.
I pray for their partners.
I pray for their inevitable existential transformation.
I pray that their doctors, nurses, coordinators, and techs become like family.
I pray for their comfort and ease.
I pray for deft surgical hands and curious oncologists that are willing to try anything.
But most of all I pray that they can smile and laugh and have some peace on this journey through the heartache.
Even if it's for just a fleeting moment of reprieve.
So here's to you ladies.
You've got this.