Deborah Lang Hampton

Breast cancer is a foreign country I’ve learned to live in. When I was first  diagnosed, it was as though I had been parachuted into enemy territory, an  unwilling draftee. I had to learn the language and customs of this new place  quickly, as though my life depended upon it—and it did. I was engaged in a war  that was going to change me forever. I had no idea how profound that change was  going to be or where it would take me. As the years went by, this new country  became my permanent assignment and then, truly, my home.

After nearly 12 years, I have spent one third of my adult life in this place.  Each experience, each encounter has harrowed up the soil of my life, my heart,  my soul. From this ground, I have learned my capacity for courage, acceptance,  strength, humor, joy and persistence. I now know and trust myself. As hard as  this has been, I wouldn’t change my life. The common thread woven throughout has  been living with breast cancer, not dying from it.

I thank my body, which has rallied and responded to treatment so many times,  showing strength and endurance in the face of a persistent assailant. Yet I  sometimes feel betrayed by it. Why does the cancer keep coming back? I see my  many scars as evidence of a series of battles, sometimes as signs of having been  violated by this disease, but more often as badges of effort and even courage.  I’m not saintly at all about this. I have to pry my fingers from an attachment  to how I wish I still looked and felt physically. But I remind myself of that  profound truth that embedded itself years ago: It’s how I live my life that  matters.

I have spent these years with cancer looking for its higher purpose. I don’t  profess to have some cosmic understanding of that, but every day I see evidence  of the opportunities it opens to me. I think that when we suffer, we have two  choices: We can become bitter and blaming, or we can dredge out a deep channel  for compassion and see ourselves linked to the suffering and struggle of other  people.

Living with the uncertainty of my life is sometimes trying. The end-of-life  work that I’ve done this past year as my prognosis worsened has been necessary  and meaningful. Now that I’m doing better, though, sometimes I feel like I’m all  dressed up with no place to go. I walk the tightrope between maintaining hope  that I could live to a ripe old age and living in the moment. My spiritual and  emotional history, however, tell me that I have every reason to be filled with  hope. My hope lies in my sureness that I will be able to face whatever comes and  that I’ll have within me and around me what I need for the journey, wherever it  takes me.

Some people talk about cure, but I don’t have that word in my vocabulary, at  least not where it applies to my life. I’ve watched other women live meaningful  lives, right up to their deaths. Were they cured? No, not if you mean having  their illness taken from them. But by my witness of their lives, they were  healed. Their lives were as authentic and full as any I’ve ever known, whether  they lived to be 28 or 80.

That’s the healing that I pray for. Make me a whole  person, one who loves, accepts, serves, rejoices and opens up to others honestly  and without hesitation. Then I might be someone worth remembering. Then I will  have left a life well-lived.

Deborah Lang Hampton lives in  Hixson, Tennessee, and is author of the upcoming book, 

Slapped Awake: Living  with Breast Cancer

Deborah Lang Hampton

A Life Well-Lived

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