The weeks between my diagnosis and surgery for my first breast cancer seemed eternal. Fear was my constant companion. Praying and talking to friends brought brief reductions in my levels of fear, but no significant time outs from the unrelenting anxiety. Then, a chance encounter with the aroma of toasting pound cake eased the knot in my stomach.
The weeks between my diagnosis and surgery for my first breast cancer seemed eternal. Fear was my constant companion. Praying and talking to friends brought brief reductions in my levels of fear, but no significant time outs from the unrelenting anxiety. Then, a chance encounter with the aroma of toasting pound cake eased the knot in my stomach.I was in my local diner, trying to get something in me that my stomach would tolerate. I don’t know why, but when I smelled that pound cake I ordered it along with a cup of tea. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten toasted pound cake.
It arrived warm and fragrant. For some reason, I added a great deal of milk to my tea; not how I usually take it.
As I ate the pound cake, I started to feel at ease for the first time since my diagnosis. I started to feel as if I could get through breast cancer. I didn’t understand why while this eating of pound cake and drinking tea that was almost all milk was giving me the first real peace I had known since my diagnosis. Then I remembered…
Just about every afternoon, from the time I was two to the time I was almost four I spent with my grandma. It was our ritual, whatever we were doing that day, to end our visit with a slice of her homemade pound cake, toasted, and what we called milk tea. I remember it as a time when all seemed safe. It was a time when whatever my problems were, grandma could, and would fix them.
She died when I was four. I buried my memories of her pound cake and her milk tea, and those special times when there was nothing to fear. That was until the magic of that memory brought me comfort at a time I desperately needed it.
Why do I share this? Because most of us have a place, be it physical or mental, where we can go to find peace and hope and security. A place we can visit, where cancer can’t follow, where for a brief while we feel safe, we gather courage, and we have faith that we can cope with the fear that cancer brings.
