I Am Pretty in Pink

It only takes a quick glance at my closet to prove that I am indeed pretty in pink.  I just looked in there and - without even rummaging through the stacks or riffling through the hanging section - I could see six pink T-shirts, three pink skirts, a pink baseball cap encrusted with a beaded heart, a sassy pink straw hat, two pink gauzy tops, two pink tote bags, and one pink dress.  If I looked in my dresser drawers, my jewelry box and my hamper I would find plenty of pink bracelets, earrings, underwear, and probably a few more T -shirts.

In theory, I look like crap in pink.  My hair color roams between strawberry blonde and deep auburn.  My skin has (blotchy) red undertones.  I'm no color expert, but I think it unlikely that anyone would recommend that I wear pink.  But I am a breast cancer survivor and I am pretty in pink.  

Three and one-half years ago, my hand brushed against my right breast and I discovered something odd.  My fingertips had grazed across a tiny lump that felt like a small pea, and in that moment my world changed.  I was forty-one years old and my youngest child was only in preschool. 

The next fourteen months brought me four rounds of chemotherapy, seven surgeries, and countless medical appointments.  My mind divides my life into Before-Cancer and After-Cancer.  While I would never call my cancer experience a blessing, I can report that life after cancer can be just as fun, fulfilling, aggravating, unfair, and wonderful as life before cancer.  And that I look better in pink than I ever would have imagined.

Editor's note: Read more of Jayne's blog about life after cancer here, and join us for Pretty in Pink on Saturday from 10am to 4pm at Westover Gallery of Shops.