Coping with Cancer

          We each worked through our grief and helpless feelings after Cathy's stage IV Breast cancer diagnosis in different ways. Mom's helplessness found outlet in doing. After she learned about the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk, she was obsessed for most of the next eight years! Fundraising, training to walk 20 miles a day for three days, collecting items for fundraising garage sales, and, finally, walking eight times, in addition to crewing five times in six different cities, between 2004-2011, focused her energies.

          Cathy's husband, my brother David, single-handedly built a shed in which to store his 1942 Jeep Willys. The plans grew into a 2-Bay building with a full second story, and winch for lifting out engines, and a porch along the backside. His daughter-in-law dubbed the structure the Garage-Mahal for the jeep.
         Doing kinesthetic projects allowed both Mom and David to work out the emotions which could overwhelm. Pounding nails dispels anger. Pounding the pavement wears out the body allowing it to find rest and sleep at the end of the day.
         I ruminated and wrote-