I am truly inspired by a most mindful group of breast cancer survivors. Referring to themselves as "The Golden Mammaries", these women gather weekly to support each other, share stories, and mostly, to laugh. In their fifties and sixties, they've lived through cancer--some more than once--and they never miss their cue to grin. Picture this: white hair, no hair, carefully-coiffed hair, wigs. Pale faces, robust and beaming faces, tense and drawn faces, I'm-at-peace faces. Pink ribbons, Race For The Cure sweatshirts, designer blouses, colorful tunics. Sensible Birkenstocks, knee-high suede boots, running shoes, clogs.
These women come from all walks of life, but this is one walk they share, holding hands along
way and skipping whenever they get a chance.
Despite scalp-scalding radiation, gut-churning chemo, hold-your-breath biopsies, painful surgeries, and unspeakable fear, "Golden Mammaries" are riding high. They know what really matters, and they laugh their heads off at everything else.
There's a trick they use to keep things light. Whenever they hear word "memory", they mentally replace it with "mammary". So, if they hear someone say, "I have many happy memories" they would simply change that to "I have many happy mammaries."
It has a way of making you grin. Happy mammaries? Now, there's a perky mental image! Think of a pair of smiley faces. How uplifting!
Sad memories? Sad mammaries. Droopy. Down-turned. Moping.
Losing your memory? Losing your mammary. Heck, many of these women have lost their mammaries--and all have lost good friends. If they can laugh about this, it should be a piece of cake for rest of us!
