She Was Unafraid

Even though it's Monday, I'm still going to write for Five-Minute-Friday! This week's word is afraid.


It was the evening of her birthday. We'd shared dinner together, our husbands were outside, her daughter was doing her evening routine. We settled into the living room and she snuggled under a blanket.

"I want you to know that if this is it, I'm OK," she said. I nodded, knowing, yet speechless. "I mean, I will miss my family and my friends, and I will fight this, but if this is it, I will be healed and won't have to deal with this illness anymore."

Four days earlier, she'd gone in for an ultrasound of her gall bladder. But the information that came back had nothing to do with her gall bladder. The results were that her breast cancer had come back and was in her liver.

Just shy of two months later, I spent a Tuesday with her. Same living room, same blanket. She was running a slight temperature. The doctor feared infection and told her to come the ER right away.

When I saw her again the next day, they were waiting for hospice. Then began a beautiful, horridly difficult six-day journey to her ultimate healing. A journey in which she showed all of us what it means to not be afraid.