Coming to Terms with the Pink Ribbon

12/17/2008

One of my first thoughts upon hearing the news that I have breast cancer (aside from Katie, Mike, my parents and my friends) was that I really wasn’t all that fond of the pink ribbon. Not that I’m against awareness or research but the pink ribbons just seemed to be everywhere – and for good reason, as it turns out.

I’m not all that fond of pink in general. Even when I found out I was going to have a little girl, I scrambled for other, less obvious colors to associate with having a daughter – like the lovely seafoam green.

So you can imagine that if I wasn’t crazy about associating pink with my beautiful, wonderful, perfect little girl – I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand by and allow this disease that could ultimately be my demise to identify and define me with a pink ribbon. I mean of all the colors in the big Crayola box..

So then I spent the weekend reading about the disease and figuring out how to tell people and I began to find myself accepting the pink ribbon – not loving, but accepting – learning to appreciate all that it means. How the saturation of it in society has brought about ground breaking research and awareness of a disease that, frankly, before the pink ribbon, nobody talked about. More than anything, it is a symbol of hope for women like me – and that doesn’t seem like such a horrible thing for people to associate with me.

Then the final step in my move toward acceptance…

Silk Hope is a small town and Mike grew up there, so everyone knows your name and your business. In an effort to be in control of the tumor, I mean, rumor mill, Mike decided that the best way to let people in Silk Hope know of my condition would be to erect a structure in the yard that could be seen from the significantly distant main road. This was also a substitute for the annual lighting of the house with Christmas lights as Mike did not feel this was appropriate given the recent news.

Last night, the day before my first of what will most assuredly be many, many doctor’s appointments; I returned from work, and from the road could see a spot light shining on an 8 foot, wooden ribbon, painted the perfect shade of pink, attached high in a pine tree in our front yard. It was so cute and so sweet, and really, just so Mike.

Right that moment, coming up the driveway I came full circle, accepting the pink ribbon – because for better or worse, for the rest of my life, I will be a breast cancer Survivor.