“She not
only saw a light at the end of the tunnel, she became that light for
others…celebrate her compassion.”
-
Kobi Yamada
This is what courage, strength, and beauty looks like. This
is my dear friend, Beth Spicer. She is a breast cancer warrior. Today we are
celebrating her 33rd and FINAL radiation treatment. This marks the end of a year that was unlike
any other for her. I won’t pretend to
know all that she as endured during the last year, but I do know this, the way
that she handled her battle taught me more about the kind of person I want to
be. She stared her cancer down. She
sized it up. She made some of the most difficult decisions of her life. She
fought. She showed up to work after
rounds of chemotherapy. She fought
harder. She loved her family through their suffering and through their fear. She reassured her young students that she
would be fine, even when I know her heart was heavy and unsure. She battled
daily. Her armor was her faith, her
optimism, and the infectious smile that you see in this picture above.
It was almost a year ago when she called to tell me the
results of her mammogram. She was so
“matter of fact” about it that I wasn’t sure exactly how to react. We talked for a while about cancer, about
treatments, about logistics. I found it
astonishing that her biggest worries were about how other people would handle
the news. From the beginning it was
clear that she had not only agreed to battle breast cancer, but that she
intended to do so without inconveniencing anyone and while running a small
Catholic school. I am sure her family can speak to the battle with far more
clarity than I can, yet I am compelled to share her story as I saw it unfold in
so many poignant moments over the past year.
One of those moments was when she shared her diagnosis with
her staff and students. This was early on in the school year. Just as she
calculated the time that she would need to allocate for treatments, she
carefully plotted out how she would deliver the news so that business would go
on as usual. She used that disarming
smile to reassure her staff and her students that it would be a great year even
when she knew it would be one of her toughest. She hated to draw any kind of
attention to herself and opted to fight her battles quietly. She rarely ever asked for help, but rather
spent time offering her help to others. She chaperoned junior high dances,
attended sporting events, celebrated student accomplishments. She demanded that
parents let her be a part of a carpool to basketball practice despite the facts
that a part of her day was spent in Columbus at chemotherapy. In fact, at a meeting in April as her
chemotherapy was coming to an end and before her radiation began her nose
started bleeding as she was talking.
Worried and alarmed I handed her a tissue and she retorted with that
same smile “I keep telling people I don’t have time for cancer. I am the
principal of a Catholic school.” Then she winked and said “I’m fine, this just
happens sometimes.” That sort of comment is about the closest she ever came to
actually addressing the fact that she was in a battle.
Her humility and perseverance, her humor and compassion for
others, her unrelenting faith that God would see her through- these are the
things that I will remember about the past year. The year that this remarkable
woman battled breast cancer and became a warrior. The year that she taught a
school full of young children and their parents what living your faith looks
like. The year she showed me the kind of woman I want to be.
She not only saw the light at the end of the tunnel, she
became that light for others, and today I celebrate her.
