When Life Hands you Lemons …

… you have a choice, complain about the lemons, or you can make some lemonade.

 This week I took a spontaneous trip home.  It was a frigid winter in 2004 when I disembarked in Toronto with a spring jacket and running shoes.  Those were my “warm” clothes and that was the winter that I said, “I am never coming home during winter again.” Never say never.

Here I am, sitting in the airport getting ready to fly back to Mexico.

This week I came home to be with my family.  It was one of those times when you get the chance to offer support, lend a hand, or just be around to do whatever needs doing.  This week I got to feed the horses, make bagged lunches, drive my niece to school, feed the dogs, and more than anything, just be around my family. 

Cancer runs in my roots.  We lost our mother in 2004, and most aunts, uncles, grandparents and so on. My mother was genetically tested when she came face-to-face with her second round of cancer in 2000.  She tested positive. 

For me (and I assume my brothers and sisters) cancer is more of an expectation, a dormant fear.  There are events we cannot control, but how can we turn fear into empowerment?

My sister Sharon has been giving me tidbits of advice over the years.  It was her that reminded me back in 2006, “Be proactive, not reactive., Diane.”  How many times do we give advice and then have a hard time taking our own advice.  I can attest to the difficulty of this.  So often words are a currency that we throw around without recognizing their meaning and applicability.  Without action, words are just words; no more than lines, dots and sounds. 

Be proactive, not reactive. This is an attitude, and attitude drives action.

My sister was scheduled for surgery on Tuesday afternoon.  She hoped that maybe she would be released the same day, but as scheduled, she made her way home Wednesday afternoon.  She assembled her pill bottles in the bathroom and without a moment’s hesitation she began her remarkable recovery, immediately asking for a picture to add to the “empowerment file.”  She was released from the hospital with four drainage tubes that allowed for fluids to leave the body.  These tubes emptied into plastic containers that were pinned to the inside of her jacket/sweater (picture a housecoat that only goes down to the waist).  She undid the jacket and opened it, there you had it, the “Unibomber”.  This would be one of her nicknames for the week.  “Be careful of the Unibomber.”  “Unibomber coming through.”  “Do you think I would pass through airport security with these?”

Who is the Unibomber anyway?

She didn’t give her attention to the scars forming across her chest.  Her bombs weren’t ammunition in the sense we would consider ammunition.  But they were ammunition.  It was as if her weakness became her strength and not for one second during the next four days did I hear a complaint.  Instead being a slave to circumstance, she took the drivers seat, claimed authorship of her triumph, and she didn’t let up for a second.  It was her actions that moved her from victim to victor. 

In the next 72 hours I watched her finish a beautiful oil painting, discover new ways to fill the dogs’ water container, new ways to get the coffee filters off the top shelf, feed the horses bails of hay, to carry laundry up and down the stairs. She made bread, shopped online, and she paced the hallway looking for something new to do.  She got out in the snow and walked the trails on her property, and she paid visits to her buddies down at another stable. We visited my mom.  There was no laying in bed, no feeling sorry for and no letting up.  Recovery was her destination and she was getting there laughing all the way. She adapted.

My sister had lost both of her breasts, but she embraced her new look.  She compared herself to Cameron Diaz and Gweneth Paltrow, and found that she resembled Angelina Jolie in Tombraider with her tank top and empowered self.  She grew into her new shape and she didn’t fight fate.  She didn’t author herself to be the poor just-40 year old woman to face tragedy, no.  She penned herself in as the empowered just-40 year old woman who got thrown a lemon.  What did she do?  She caught hold of it as said, “Look, a lemon! Let’s make some lemonade.”

How can you turn fear into empowerment?  One word.  Attitude.  That, is a choice.