across the meadow and down Hunter’s Creek. Maybe he was going somewhere I didn’t know anything about. Either way, I needed to see what his butt looked like.
“Hey,” I shouted, turning my head so I got a great look before he turned back. Fit but not flashy, in shape but not showing off. Spectacular. “Why did you name her Florence?”
He smiled. “That’s my second favorite city.”
“I like it,” I said. Actually, I loved it. “See you tonight.”
He nodded, and off they went. A man and his dog. A gorgeous man and his dog. Perhaps soon to be my man and his dog. It could happen. Stranger things have.
As I watched him walk away, something inside me changed. For the better, I thought, and forever. From this moment forward, I decided, I really am going to be filled with loving-kindness. I really am going to be peaceful and at ease. I really am going to be happy. Who knows what might happen. Maybe Stephen would make a move on me tonight. Maybe we’d have a one-night stand that would become a treasured memory, or maybe it would be more than that, much more. Maybe I’d wake up in his bed after a night of rapture and affection and look out his window and see the sun coming up over the mountain and decide I would do as he did, stay forever. And maybe we’d be together.
And maybe none of that would happen, but isn’t it wonderful that it might?
I stood and brushed the dirt from my butt, went right to the edge of the platform, and beheld it all, the trees, the streams, the gondola at the base of Aspen Mountain. I watched an airplane cross the entire horizon and touch down at the airport a few miles away. The horizon was limitless, just like my life, filled with endless possibilities. And that, I realized, is the answer to the question, the one about what makes life worth living. It’s about all the wonderful things that might happen, if only we’d let them. And I knew, right then and there, that someday I would look back and say that this was the best day of my entire life.
PART II
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Samantha R.
BreastCancerForum.org
Greenwich, Conn
Date joined: 9/30/2011
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Hello, my name is Samantha Royce, and I have breast cancer.
Is that how you’re supposed to start?
I don’t exactly know the etiquette here. I suppose my beginning sounds like something from Alcoholics Anonymous, where I have also never been, by the way, but I’ve seen it in movies and read it in books, you make your introduction to the group and then you tell them your problem. Perhaps it works the same way in a breast cancer support chat room. I really don’t know. I guess, like a lot of other things right now, I’m going to have to figure it out as I go along.
I think I should tell you who I am, because it’s important to me that you know that I’m not just a cancer patient. I hope no one takes that the wrong way. I know you’re all cancer patients, too, and I don’t want to minimize that, I really don’t, but that’s not who I am, just as I assume it’s not who you are. I assume you’re all somebody just like me, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, maybe somebody’s wife. Maybe somebody’s boss. I’m some of those, not all of them. I’m not anybody’s boss, or anybody’s wife, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be either one. I mean, I wasn’t sure last week, before this bomb was dropped on me, and I’m even less sure now.
So who am I? I’m 28 years old. I was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. I love sports, not so much watching them as playing them. I love to be outdoors, hiking, biking, running. I’m a good athlete. Just three weeks ago I finished the Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii. It was a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles on the bike, and then a full marathon; I completed the course in 10 hours, 23 minutes, and 17 seconds. I have never felt healthier, stronger, better in my life. The idea that I might be sick could not have been further from my mind.
I came back to New York with my father two days after the race and began to get my life back together. (It’s a really long story how it had come apart. I won’t get into all the details today, maybe another time.