A year of miracles

This is my mother. And that is my oldest brother. We were celebrating our nephew’s birthday and the New Year’s Eve last December the 31st.

In May, last year, while I was traveling in Europe, she went to the hospital in strong pain.

My family discovered she had a big tumor.

When my friend reached my boyfriend to tell him about the situation, he delivered a very objective message, which could not be much different: she has cancer and her stage is terminal.

My heart sank.

Even though I am a buddhist, we went back to a beautiful church in Lyon, to see the Notre Dame de Fourvière. Unlike many other churches, this church is joyous, happy, bright.

The image it had in its centre is not of a suffering man, covered in blood, in pain. It is a mother in all her glory. It is THE mother. It is anybody’s mother.

It is MY mother.

I said my prayers in the way I know, almost in silence. I made a choice: I decided to share my own health with my mother, in case she wanted to fight her battle, of course.

I changed my flight to go back to Brazil. I was going to fly on Sunday. It was Friday. We had two more days in Paris. Paulo and I decided to go to Giverny, where Monet lived his last years and painted his beautiful gardens.

In Giverny, observing all those beautiful flowers, all I could think was: my mother might never have a chance to come here. Of all people, she is the one who should be here. Not me. I don’t appreciate flowers as much as she does.

Something changed in me.

With my mom in my heart, the beauty of those flowers brought me, one by one, to the verge of crying. Sometimes I could not hold the tears.

I didn’t understand then.

I don’t know if I understand now.

I thought I could not see or feel the beauty, but every time I turned my eyes to some beautiful flower, I knew it was beautiful.

I felt a mix of sadness and joy, a mix of beauty and ugliness, a mix of weight and lightness. I felt it was right and wrong. I felt fear and love. I felt so alive, so ready for new starts.

I felt LIFE was so wonderful.

In Chinese medicine tradition, they know that when you grow older, it is more difficult to make spring come back after the winter. You must want it to happen.

In Paris, it was already Spring. But in Brazil it was Fall.

Back in Brazil, I discovered the most optimistic doctor had given her six months. That would be October.

My mother was a child during the World War II. She knew hardships. She lost 2 brothers in that war.

She came to Brazil knowing very little about this country. She didn’t speak Portuguese.

But that was probably going to be her most difficult Winter. She lost 15 kilos. She had a surgery. She didn’t have appetite.

She was very weak, fragile. She slept all day. She fought. She tried hard to eat. She prayed for hours and hours. She was grateful for the life she had had. She prayed for a peaceful and painless life. And she was ready to say goodbye, if that was the case.

I looked for positive stories of cancer cure everywhere. In self-help books. In scientific articles. In places. In people. And I found some beautiful ones. And I knew it was my mother’s choice to rewrite this story. Most of us can’t. But most of us are so disconnected…

I haven’t told you my mother’s favorite flowers are orchids.

And it was very magical that one of her orchids, eight years old, had never flowered until 2015.

In that spring they did. And they were stunningly beautiful. Strong, enormous, sweet. You could get a bit of their sugar in your fingers and taste their sweetness.

It made a new Spring. My mother made a new Spring.

In October, an exam showed the tumor had disappeared.

DISAPPEARED.

Her aggressive cancer cells in her aggressive cancerous tumor had disappeared.

She started to gain weight. She gained almost 10 kilos now.

On the 25th, in this beautiful celebration that our city will host, she will celebrate 81 years of a long and eventful life.

As I say, my mother fell on the road, got hurt and scared, she felt confused.

She decided to get up, shake off the dirt and let go of expectations.

To our surprise, as she prepared to let go, her child came back.

And this child wanted to play a little more, of course.

2015 was a year of miracles for my family and I.

I wish us all another year of miracles.

I wish us all a life full of miracles.

Let’s make choices based on love.

Let’s play a lot, lot more.

Let’s be open to learn.

LIFE is wonderful.