All Things Pink

Last weekend, a friend and I walked in the Komen Race for the Cure in Grand Rapids. We crossed the starting line and began our walk up Wilson Avenue, and I was amazed at the sea of pink ahead of us. As far as the eye could see were people walking and running to support breast cancer awareness—nearly seven thousand of us!—men, women, and children in all different variations of the color pink. And it got me thinking…

Pink is not the color I would have chosen for my life. In fact, six years ago my wardrobe held only one item of pink clothing: a pink sweater my mom had given me for Christmas in my freshman year of high school. I wore it through high school and into college before tucking it away in a drawer. Then came my cancer diagnosis in June 2004 and my world suddenly turned pink. For some reason I had kept that sweater all those years, and instantly it took on greater significance, almost as if my mom somehow knew I would need it one day. Now, some twenty years after I first unwrapped it, the sweater is a showing inevitable signs of age—kind of like myself! :-) But I still wear it during the cold winters, and each time I wear it is like getting a hug from Mom.

October is breast cancer awareness month, and few people are more aware of breast cancer than those of us who have walked the path of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and follow-up treatments that alter our lives forever. My body healed, my hair grew back, but my wardrobe is still chock full of the color pink: pink t-shirts and turtlenecks; pink sweatpants, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes; pink socks, purses, and pins; pink ball caps, bracelets, and bandannas. They are reminders of the miracle God worked (and continues to work) in my body and of how thankful I am for the gift of each day.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of picking out lots of pink stuff when God would bless us with a baby girl, a sister for Ben to complete the “American Dream” family: dad, mom, boy, girl, and a dog. The Lord had a different plan for my life, however, and baby girl pink wasn’t in it. I’m still waiting to discover all God’s plan involves, but for now I’m content to enjoy this season of being a mother to my absolute favorite son, watching him grow and learn. Life could have been so different for him and Sean if God had not chosen to heal me.

So my pink “fix” has come in a way I never would have chosen for myself, via physical pain and broken dreams. Looking back, though, I can honestly say I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The lessons I learned about compassion, patience, endurance, encouragement, and the giving and receiving of blessing have genuine Kingdom value. And never fear, I still wear plenty of pink stuff. Even as I type this, I’m wearing the hot pink survivor t-shirt from last weekend’s 5K walk.

Lately, however, I’m being more intentional about including other colors in my fashion and accessory choices. You see, while pink is a color of courage and hope to those of us who have journeyed through breast cancer, I am to the point six years later where I refuse to be defined by a disease. Yes, I survived breast cancer. That’s a big part of my life, but it’s only a part of my life. So I’ll mix things up with some other shades: peach, salmon, rose, magenta, fuchsia. Maybe even a bit of red, blue, and purple while I’m at it. Just not yellow…please, God, don’t make me wear yellow! :-)

A Mom's Life

I shared this poem with a college friend after reading her blog this morning. She really like it and asked if I would post it for others. As a sometimes frazzled mother of one, this is how I feel sometimes when I get to the end of the day. Enjoy!

“Day’s End”

The endless flow of chatter has finally ceased.
I’m alone at last, with only the flip of these folios
And the strains of a Brahms sonata to permeate the stillness.
My little one is in bed, and my shell-shocked brain can finally pause—
Or not, as he emerges to beg another drink of water, another trip to the bathroom.

Alone again (for good this time?) I ponder
How quiet the printed page is…

It cannot talk back to me, tell me it doesn’t like me anymore,
Threaten to take a long vacation.

It won’t whine for the latest toy or the most sugar-filled breakfast cereal,
Sometimes in the same sentence.

It is not forever in motion; serifs don’t fidget or fuss
Or jump on the furniture.

Its rhetoric is not accentuated with karate kicks, wrestling throws,
Or the gatling of gunfire.

It does not shout “Mom!” for the thousandth time,
Then forget what it was going to say.

When I’ve had enough, I simply shut the cover
And stop the flow of sounds inside my head.
That’s when I’m reminded that printed words cannot
Suffocate me with bear hugs,
Rub noses like Eskimoses,
Sing along with Mary Poppins,
Build a snow fort,
Sink my battleship,
Or let me win at Uno.

They cannot speak in spoonerisms,
Tell me I’m the best mom in the world,
Or say “I love you” before lights-out.

Still, that black-on-white crispness calms my frazzled nerves
As I close the book on another day of being Mom.

Copyright 2010 by Amy Nemecek

What I've Been Reading in 2010

Something old, something new, something borrowed…now I’m blue.

I started out the year reading two books about the instrument I love the most: the violin. First up was The Violin Maker by John Marchese (HarperCollins, 2007). I got it (almost) new via paperbackswap.com, and as soon as it arrived I tucked in. Fascinating! The author had a musical background, but really knew very little about stringed instruments when starting out. By shadowing a world-renowned luthier, Marchese follows the creation of one of these “magic boxes” from start to finish to first performance. I couldn’t put it down until I found out whether the violinist liked his new instrument…and I won’t give it away. You’ll just have to discover it for yourself. The book is accessible even if (perhaps especially if) you know absolutely nothing about violins.

That led me to read something old…a biographical novel from the fifties titled The Violin Hunter by William Alexander Silverman. I was amazed that our little library in Cadillac, Michigan, actually had a copy, tattered though it was. The subject of the novel is Luigi Tarisio, the man responsible for discovering over a thousand Cremonese stringed instruments in the mid-nineteenth century. Many of the world-famous Strads and del Gesus still played today were found by him on his travels through Italy, France, and Spain. Silverman does a good job of taking what we know about Tarisio (not a lot) and weaving it into a most enjoyable story. While it may be hard to track down a copy, it’s worth the trouble if you love expensive violins and a good story.

On a completely different note, just last night I stayed up late to finish The Mascot, a WWII memoir by Mark Kurzem (Viking, 2007). The subtitle tells it all: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father’s Nazi Boyhood. The book does read a bit like a mystery novel. Kurzem’s father, Alex, was five years old when his village in Belarus was "liquidated" of its Jews in 1941. Alex escaped and hid in the forest, but his entire family perished at the hands of the Latvian police, who were backed by the Nazis. That police brigade eventually found the boy wandering in the forest. Nobody suspected he was Jewish, so they adopted him as their mascot. He was dressed in a little Wehrmacht uniform and accompanied the brigade on patrol because he was supposedly good for the soldiers' morale. But that is only the beginning of Alex’s remarkable story.

At first it doesn’t seem possible that this could really happen to a child, and as the author researched to help his father discover his true identity, most of the “experts” he consulted discounted the story as a child’s faulty memories. Nevertheless, he persisted and eventually was able to accompany his father back eastern Europe where they could put all the jigsaw pieces together. So many seeming coincidences come together in the end to make for a satisfying read. I marveled at what my worldview could only interpret as divine Providence directing every contact, every scrap of information. Still, I’m left feeling sad when I think what evil mankind is capable of and how that evil can affect the life of a small child, robbing him of his family, his very identity, and haunting him into what should have been his golden years. The Mascot is not for the fainthearted, but it is a well-told story that deserves to be heard.