Real Life..Christina DePauw Heald

For me, life is about others, and at times I have encountered the most wonderful people, who are just trying to get through life in the most ordinary way. I wanted to introduce someone incredibly special, Christina DePauw Heald. A woman, a mother and a wife who is in the fight of her life...

"I've realized this year that, for whatever reason, I was supposed to lose it all--or come really close. I have spent months in self-reflection and I have come to realize a few important things:

I can't control everything.

In order to become the person I want to be--I need to throw away the person I am.
I spent my 20's hung up on my outward beauty. I spent much of my 30's working on my inner beauty. What I realize finally in my 40's is that your LASTING beauty is what will ultimately define you. "Christina DePauw Heald writes a blog about her struggles and battles with breast cancer. Finding her, in this maze of the world wide web of information and disinformation was not unlike finding a long lost sister.

Most of us have been touched by someone who is battling this disease. They have good days, bad days, and mostly people honestly don't know what to say as the exchange hopeful smiles and secretly hopes they are not the ones who have to some day hear the news that seemingly too many people are hearing, "you have cancer." The reality I live with is that the odds are not in my favor, but I refuse to think about it. You don't want to open Pandora's box, and yet every month I breathe a sigh of relief that nothing is wrong (yet).

My mother, was only 55 years old, diagnosed with Stage IV of ovarian cancer and died 2 months and 5 days later. Yes, it was horrible. However, like Christina, she tried to impart as much wisdom as she could before she died in between treatments that seemed to only make her die more quickly. Treatment looked worse than the disease. Anyone who chooses to go through treatment is making a decision to fight like hell to live. They are courageous.

I had many other friends who have battled this disease, and two women that I remembered the most who were going through treatment at the same time, at the same stage...where one lived and one died. It totalled my surviving friend, burdened her with survivor's guilt when she received the news that her body was clear of the disease shortly after the death of her friend.

This mortality we are all cursed with, was a lesson. That too often we don't enjoy life and don't value each other enough. I encourage you to stop by Christina's blog, Specifically Speaking and offer your words of support and encouragement. She is a heroine in a time when the world has gone mad.

Marilyn Campiz
Writer, author, poetess
The Lotus Sutra Chronicles - An American ex-patriot's personal blog about her adventures, observations, and personal quests for art and a good red wine while teaching English in Daegu, South Korea.