I could have missed this.

March, 2024

I could have missed this…

I hesitated to share this personal experience here, but have decided to…
hoping that it resonates with and inspires you — or as in my case back in 2018, wakes you up to listen to the calling of your heart and not "miss" your life. The one you dream of living.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend and gifted photographer, Lisa Arnold Photography gifted me a photo of me with my dear daughter, Emma. It was taken on Mother's Day weekend in 2019, jsut about five years ago. My hair had grown back (pretty curly, huh?) after my cancer treatments the year before.

It's not until recently that I have opened up to "process" my 2018 cancer journey. Before now, my brain hadn't allowed me to think about the fact that my cancer could’ve easily, and was most likely going to claim my life. Now, even more than before, I am remembering and feely deeply grateful for the people and miracles — the synchronicities that saved me: my gifted doctors, loving family and friends, even the dozens of goldfinch that swirled around my yard on the day of my diagnosis.

Mostly, I am recalling my fierce will to live.

My immediate thought after hearing my crazy diagnosis was "I can't leave my daughter without her mother. She is just 15. She needs me"
And, I need her

But I did not die, I am even more alive than ever before… and I am forever changed.

What I find myself savoring and reflecting on this last few months are all of the moments I could have missed with my dear Emma.

I could have missed her milestones…
getting her driver's license, proms, her trip to China, graduations, college where her love of marine bio and tennis soared, Covid!, and this year, her first job/dream job working to preserve coral reefs.

I could have missed our shared moments…
our annual ritual of building fairy houses on Monhegan, scuba diving to a depth of 100 feet at Molokini crater, yummy lunches at GroundSwell cafe, that beautiful week in Paris after graduation, cooking and dancing in the kitchen to Abba music, binge watching "Friends", painting, ooing and ahhing over sunsets… laughing, loving… so many precious moments.

I would not have been able to be her mother anymore, which is my greatest and most precious honor and gift in this life.

As Mother's Day approaches, I am reflecting on these precious moments even more,.. counting the days until we can go visit her in St. Thomas after my QUEST event… for Mother's Day 2024.

I can almost not breath right now as I type, realizing that I could have missed these moments.