If you are a cancer survivor, the road is still on...
My cousin Massiel is a cancer survivor and today I celebrate her life, but I also celebrate the luck of having grown up together, since childhood.
Of asking for permission to sleep over at each other's house, filling out our first diaries, pining for bands and musical groups and for our first loves, lending us clothes a million times, watching us graduate, getting married, having children... and still being here, sharing life.
For all the times we arrive shining the sun, with shoes in hand, after a night of disco. For the confidences, the laughs, the crazy things and those memories that only those of us who grew up together can understand.
And today I want to extend this celebration to all of us who were fortunate enough to grow up close to our cousins and discovered that family can also be our first refuge, our childhood accomplices and our life companions.
What a great gift it is to have a birthday and discover that, despite everything that has changed, we still have people with whom we can be again, those children we were.
Because there are links that do not age: they are filled with stories. During this month there is a lot of talk about how to prevent breast cancer, and this is very important! Today I want to share with those of us who are breast cancer survivors. Although it is more common in women, men also suffer from it. That is why I am writing to all of you who read me as people who, after facing such a dangerous enemy, had to travel very difficult paths surgical interventions, chemotherapies, radiotherapy, anxiety and depression, and even on some occasions, loneliness or misunderstanding.
I want to tell you that today, more than ever, let's be grateful and celebrate life minute by minute. Surely we are stronger and wiser, we have learned to set limits and ask for help. That cancer brought out our best version: one in which pain did not destroy us, but turned us into a person with great empathy and, above all, with the responsibility of taking care of oneself.
The road continues, let's not be afraid. We have already overcome it once; let's not allow fear to return and take away our ability to smile and enjoy everything there is in life. Let's continue to value and love all those people who accompanied us in the illness, and of course, thank God who gave us the strength to find peace in the storm. And if you know someone who beat it too, share this post of self-reflection and thanks for not giving up.
A hug from my heart for all the warriors who fight this disease every day! ... God bless us.
Janitze.🌷
Separator made with Canva by 
Any images in this post are taken with my iPhone 12, the Infinix pro-note 30 or with the camera eighties Rolleiflex 2.8 f, and edited by me with Canva
Translation with |DeepL