Today is National Cancer Survivor Day.

I have been compiling some comparison photos. The ones of me during treatment, which were taken during my inpatient stay at Mass General, were so hard to look at for the longest time. It is still unnerving. When I upload and then delete photos from my phone these photos, as well as a few of my family, are the ones that always remain. 

In the last several months, I have only been able to pause, look at them, and consider who that person was and what aspects of him still remain. The shift in this ability, that of being able to witness this previous Jeremiah, came after my psychological and emotional hardship experienced while abroad in the fall ‘19. Since then, things have started to dissolve, things that have been carried and dragged too far for too long. Perhaps this is why I can look at this photo with more compassion and kindness. Yes, there is still fear, of course there will always be fear. 

During these years of survivorship, some people have drifted out of my life, as any path to any destination worth arriving at isn’t free of bramble and vexation. Others have grown increasingly closer to me, and in sticking with the path analogy, our comradery has strengthened, allowing us to work together through the dense underbrush that is life.