Weekly Round-Up: The Faces Edition

Another week, another loss to our community. Molly, who blogged at Everything Leads To This shares her death with her readers in a beautiful, heartbreaking final post.

I have died. I no longer walk the earth like you. In a body, that is a blessing when it works, and, when it stops working, I assure you the dropping of it is an equal blessing. That’s all I can tell you about where I’m not. As I write this, I know what everyone knows, but most don’t believe for themselves: mortality is real for us all.

Nancy marks eleven years since her Mom died of metastatic breast cancer and reminds us never to forget that behind the statistics there are loved ones lost and grieving families left behind.

It’s about faces – the dear ones behind the numbers and the families left to pick up the pieces. Real faces. Real people. Real families grieving.

With righteous anger and pain, Susan shares the faces and the families left behind of her friend Melissa who died last week,

Hearing of these deaths is hard for all of us, but I can only imagine how hard it is for those who also have Stage 1V cancer – Katie brings this viscerally to life in her latest post.

Carolyn reflects on well-meaning intentions of friends who offer to help when you’re ill but who may need some guidance on how to make the offer more actionable.  Molly also picked up on this theme in her final post.

There were those people that did come through but 98% of my frantic callers dropped away. I reached out to a few people to see if they wanted to get together and got that “we’ll figure it out” hand gesture. Although we never did.

A poignant poem from Audrey this week.

Connie shares her plans for her next solo journey and invites us to reflect on how we reward ourselves after a time of intense work.

Karin kicks off her “Creative Despite Cancer” project this week by sharing Janet‘s story.

Liz gets creative on her blog with a clever video she has created describing the cancer dance.

Super post from Ann Marie marking International Women’s Day by celebrating the strong women she knows.

Ilene shares information on the issue with dense breasts and mammography.

Barbara reviews the Breast Advocate app on her blog this week.

Important information on Dr Attai’s blog on the fallibility of thermography as an alternative to mammography.

Another super-informative post from Cathy on learning to read nutrition labels and not falling for the “all natural” label misnomer.

Lovely reflection from Karen Myers featured on the Shine Support blog on moving on after cancer.

Melanie is learning to find her “new normal” after cancer.

Moving post from Johanna on living the in-between times of cancer treatment, scans, and life.

Interested in breast reconstruction but don’t want implants? Terri helps you explore your options in her latest post.

Opting to forego reconstruction is an option which Juliet has fully embraced as she shows us in words and images in her latest inspiring post.

Finally this week’s writing prompt. Feel free to write about it on your blog or simply leave a comment below sharing your thoughts on this topic.

Until next week,

Yours with much love always,

Marie xxx