Five miles for faith

This experience of interviewing my own mother really stressed the importance to get to know others, even those you’ve lived with your entire life. Why? Well because I learned more about my mothers life than I ever had, mostly including the perspectives she took with each experience she had. Some of these in which she and I shared, but it became obvious she experienced them very differently than I had. I encourage you all to sit down with a loved one and ask them to share their story. They may seem confused at first, as my mother was. “Well why would I share my story, you already know it?” Encourage them to share regardless of your knowledge. Some things get left out when we are living them.

In order to alleviate any confusion with words, I will just stick to referring to her as Shelley. She is the first of my muses because she was the inspiration for this project in the first place, and she also made me into the creative and ambitious person I am today. She is my muse for everything. I love you mom.

“The first big decision people probably make is if they go to school or where they go to school, or at least for me this is where it began.”

Decision making shapes experiences. Making a right or wrong decision is not a valid conclusion until after the fact. After the fact means no matter what happened, you had to live through it. Shelley Majewski, a daughter, sister, wife, and mother is the first of the muses. Growing up she moved numerous times due to the demands of her parents jobs. Although this was not the start to occurrences in her life that altered her as a person today. Choosing to go to school at Florida was a “huge decision” as she recalled it to be. The first of many future decisions to make on her own, as most due when they reach this point in life. “Not 100%, but it was a learning experience. I learned how to deal with a number of people and realized how I would treat people maybe versus how a lot of people treated others. I learned a lot.” Shelley stayed at Florida for the entirety of her freshman year until winter break of her sophomore year and then decided to return home for family reasons. Her choice to go back home was a second big decision and even though it seemed like a weary one at first she sad it was good. It was better to be home and taking care of things than to be away. Transferring to a school much closer, she was able to take care of things at home but continue her studies.

Home life at this time was obviously not at its best, with acknowledgement that it wouldn’t always be, she took on the role of big listener. It wasn't always easy to just sit and listen or to give advice where it needed to be put, but she doesn’t have any sort of distaste for this experience in her life today. She recalls it to be the reason she shapes the relationships she continues to make today. At first apprehensive of getting involved with other people too quickly, she may have scaled back on making connections, but only because of this she was able to make the few close-knit relationships that stuck still to today. “I didn’t need a huge amount of friends, I wanted to make sure that the ones I did make were going to be very close. Which they were, we are still close today. I can always count on them.” Eventually then, she met Jim (otherwise known as my dad! :) ). “Your father was a lot of what I did not expect to receive before. He opened my eyes to doing fun things and took me to a bunch of places because he wanted to show me things. It wasn’t on his terms either, he always made it about me and I had never had that before.” And that was what it was going to be. A beautiful wedding took place and two beautiful babies were born (my brother and I).

All just three days before she turned 30 was the first, and unfortunately not the last experience of stating “what-if I don’t make it out of this situation?” This was due to complication in giving birth. Although she would not refer to this experience as traumatic she does admit it caused her to think about the “what-if’s” life had offered. “It changed my life. It gives you a complete sense of. . . you will never love anything more than that child.” She grew tears in her eyes and stated that was the biggest experience in which she gained a new sense of what being selfless really means. The new sense that guided her through the rest of times to come.

At 40 years old, she went in for a mammogram, just a task she had on the “to-do” list at the time. “It is probably just a muscle thing,” she thought. “The doctors really need to do better (at least back then). I waited at least 10 days with this weight over me waiting to just go in for a biopsy. All the waiting for exactly what I was anxious about.” Biopsies were positive. She was diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

“I was scared.” As anyone would be. She didn't know what came next. Most of us don’t know what will happen every second of the day but but we typically have an idea or plan of what will tomorrow will bring. At this moment she really did not know. “You just need to figure out a way to get through it,” is what her first doctor said to her. “I laughed. I didn’t even know my options.” After three weeks of talking to people to actually understand her options she landed into the hands of a doctor that gave it to her straight. “Everybody is different in how they handle things, but the few male doctors I saw before her (the Doctor she chose in the end) kept ensuring me the options I had were all up to me, that it was going to be my choice. They were obviously trying to emphezie my autonomy, but I needed someone to just tell me straight up what was going to happen and how I was going to get through this. ”

And the doctor was right.

My brother and I were told she was just “sick”. That she may not be able to do all the things we expected her to before, and maybe wouldn't seem the same all the time. To be honest she gave it her all to keep a smile on her face and energy in every step. It was hard to do it everyday though as much as I want to tell you she did, I remember she couldn't always. Everyone was affected. The routines seemed the same, but things were different. Moods and energy levels disappeared and stress replaced it.

Taking one day at a time and trying to not make routines very different was the top choice made for the family. She wanted to make everything as normal as possible under the circumstances. She was always thinking about how she would make it to the band concert or the dance recital. What we would be having for dinner that night or later that week. She did not want cancer to remove her title as mother. And she never let it, I can tell you that. She would even keep volunteering for school readings in my brother and I’s classes. The beautiful bald head and all, she would walk in with the best made snacks and read with confidence in every word. I remember this was how I learned to vocalize different characters in the books. “The kids we’re actually really good about it. I never liked to wear wigs, but no one seemed too taken back about the no-haired lady in the room.” The disease though always tried to get the best of her, and sometimes it did. She shared a story about how one day she just physically could not get out of bed, and she just laid there and watched my brother and I get ready for school on our own. She felt more sick knowing she wasn’t the one walking us to the bus stop like she made a point to do everyday. She would miss a meal or two on occasion, and I remember always feeling a heightened sense of concern fall over the house like something worse was going to happen. When mom wasn’t there, mom wasn’t herself. It was just a stressful time. A time no one fully understood how to handle because no one really knew what would come from it. She hated this the most.

I asked her then, so why? Why did you keep trying to do things like this? You were sick, you obviously had an excuse to not volunteer, but instead you volunteered more. Also excuses to not plan parties, or try to get up every morning and walk us to the bus stop, but she insisted to keep doing all of it. I had never really realized everything and more she had put into her fight against this disease.

She did begin to feel the disease taking more from her. It was taking her memory, her emotion, the feeling of herself. The routines of treatments and medications was overwhelming. Chemo caused her “chemo-brain” and the feeling like the world was spinning. It was sucking more from her, but because of what she had she knew what she had to loose. “I wasn't going to give in to the illness.” And so she started to find new ways to get through, no matter what.

“Every other Wednesday before I went in to chemo, I had to run five miles.”

In awe, I continued to ask her “Why?” And with a shaky breath she said,

“I decided that was going to get me through.” She enjoyed to run, and this was one thing she felt should could control out of all the other variables she couldn’t at the time. She would receive treatment on Wednesdays and rest for the two weeks, preparing her body and mind for the next time she would step on that treadmill before the next round of chemo took her back again. Each time, she completed five miles. It got harder, and harder, but she always did five. Sometimes those five miles took more than an hour, but they always got done. “It made me feel like I could accomplish something. It was more about talking myself through the entire five miles- no matter how slow or how crappy I felt I always finished it and literally felt stronger. Mentally I was getting stronger and I felt ready for every treatment that came after it.” It was a legitimate battle. She would do this and go in for treatment feeling two steps ahead of the cancer and then in such short turn around the next day be stuck in bed feeling four steps behind. Those were the hard days. She remembers my grandmother pulling me away from her in bed one night a day after getting treatment because she insisting my mother needed to rest. She said she laid there and thought, “Hell no.” If it was going to start taking her kids further away from her she needed to do more. “When you can’t do the simple things, that was the most upsetting. And I just wanted to do the simple things, not have a bunch of other people do them for me.”

So she beat it. And it was not as simple as that sentence, but it was done.

“You just got through things. Everyone a part of the process just got through it. We all just took one day at a time and figured out a way to laugh at things.” It was because of this time that our family grew closer. There’s nothing like seeing someone you love so much in pain and a battle with their own body that gives you a new appreciation for every second you are able to laugh with them. This was a time no one saw coming and no one was prepared for. A time where faith and hope were questioned. “You become the person you are by the situations you face, and all of us had a different perspective on the same situation. We all grew from it and took different pieces of it to carry with us for a lifetime.”

My mother, a beautiful and inspiring woman who decided to share her side of the story, leaves me in awe. She has unmeasurable amounts of strength and has shown me that situations are only what you make of it. It is empowering to see for myself a situation that shaped the person my mother is today. The selflessness and compassion she radiates are not just inspiring, but infectious. I sit here frustrated knowing my lack of skills making this piece not even come close to moving people like the way my mom’s energy just does. I have every reason to admire her like the most beautiful piece of art that she is, and I do hope that this piece inspires others to look beyond their perspectives and instead learn about another. Only great appreciation and love is what came out of it for me.

Inspired to know more about Breast Cancer? Inspired to help? Click on the link below to let Shelley be your muse to exploration!