But I do

Pages from Imagine a Wolf by Lucky Platt (Page Street Kids 2021)

For World Cancer Day, I’m sharing a spread from Imagine a Wolf, as a breast cancer survivor living with advanced, stable disease (aka stage 4). I hope these pictures and words speak to resilience, because that’s where they are coming from in my heart. Imagine a Wolf is not a book about cancer, but in the ways that this book celebrates resilience, I know my cancer journey is in here. Cancer doesn’t always make itself known in an outward appearance kind of way. In my own experience over almost nine years, as much as possible, I have navigated the world as an optimist, a joyful lover of life. There’s nothing about me that says I live with cancer. But I do, and I know the whole community of us — those of us living with cancer, or cancer in a loved or lost one — can feel despair and resilience like competing forces. And the essential mystery of this disease, why it comes and goes, ravages and subsides, can be agonizing or fascinating depending on your perspective. I wish for all of you who recognize yourself here in some way — I wish for you that resilience wins.