I have been blessed with quite a support system, so much of one that people often comment on it. I received another email message today commenting on my “amazing support system.” And, I do. I have been blessed with amazing friends: friendships that have been cultivated over decades and some that are just a few months old. And yet, when I look at my support system, one of the things I notice is that a good many of these people are not people that I know very well, but people who know my children. My children are the ones with the amazing support system. And this brings me such comfort.
I find myself drawn ever tighter into a network of intricate bonds of support that I am both humbled and amazed by. Most times, I don’t feel worthy of the generosity that we have been shown. I feel like I haven’t been a generous person, and maybe that is why I strive to give back in this way. In sharing my journey with you, warts and all, I feel like I am giving of myself…even if it is through words and not currently of deeds.
One of the most surprise of bonds happened this week. As some of you may have noticed, to the left of my writing there is a section down the page called Blog Roll. Here I list a smattering of blogs that I personally follow, most of them non-cancer related.
A few weeks (maybe 6-8) ago, I had written a post about my wig, and being curious I typed “wig” into the search engine for wordpress, which is the host site for my blog. Up came a few blogs, and one caught my eye immediately, The Carcinista. The blog is written in a funny, snarky, irreverent way by a 2 1/2 time ovarian cancer survivor. I loved the tone, the cadence and the storytelling of her blog. I loved the spirit I heard in her writing, and the honesty that she brought to difficult, emotionally draining subjects. I dropped a few comments, and we became fans of each others blogs. And, by all rational assumptions, it should have ended there.
But, Karma has an interesting way of doing her thing. After my last post, a friend from my Gymboree days dropped me a note by Facebook. She had two high school friends that were currently dealing with their own battles with cancer, and maybe I would like to connect with them. She didn’t say what kind of cancer they had, and she didn’t say how she would put us in touch, but that was quickly answered by this email that she forwarded to me (I put in all the asterisks so as to protect personal information that The Carcinista and KLB might not want you to have):
Kick Ass Cancer Girls !!Sunday, January 31, 2010 10:29 AM
From: This sender is DomainKeys verified “KLB” View contact details
To: “Eileen”
Subject: Eileen….My friend S****’s information….Please connect ! I think you two would have a lot to talk about……
i’d be happy to speak with your friend. if she’s not ready to chat she can hit up my blog (www.carcinista.com) but feel free to give her my email address (s**********@***.com) and you could also send her to planetcancer.com or i2y.com (i’m too young for this/stupidcancer) for more young-cancer-survivor fun. i’m sorry to hear she’s out there, but happy to band together with like-minded ass-kickers. thanks for thinking of me!
she doesn’t by any chance blog as “my name is not cancer girl”, does she?
s
It took me a minute to wrap my head around it, how could KLB have known The Carcinista from high school, and still be in touch, and all the other tenuous circumstances that made it so that we were actually “meeting?” The line from Casablanca still keeps reverberating in my head” ”Of all gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” It’s not quite a gin joint (and I’d prefer Hangar One Vodka over gin anyway), but a random cancer blog on the internet…that’s pretty remarkable.
So while there is much to be said about all the crap we endure, there are so many good things. Thank you Karma for taking care of me, and my family, as we navigate this craziness together with those that support us.
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