Lesson In Love

Lots of people can tell you life lessons but until you experience them for your self. It can not be put in perspective like you think it will be until it happens. I just had a very big life lesson taught to me this weekend. You dream about and talk about the biggest engagement ring, the fanciest wedding, and all of the stuff that goes along with getting married. Then you get married and wonder what you did all that for. It's funny how you think back about the whole thing.

My husband and I did not do the whole big wedding thing. We went away to a quiet beach in the rain forest. Just him and I. We wanted the day to be just about us. The day. What we were vowing to one another. Changing are lives. Beginning our life as husband and wife. It is a day that we still talk about. A day that after we go to someones wedding we giggle in each others ear that ours was better and that it was just about us. Then on the way home we relive the that day again.

I do not have the biggest engagement ring but it is the biggest best one in the whole world to me. The best fanciest ring but most importantly it is the ring that my husband wanted me to have. The one he worked hard to save for. The one he designed for me. One like no one else's because of the day he placed it on my finger. The amazing moment in time that we said our vows and once again that ring was slipped on my finger.

This weekend my ring was taken from my home. I thought I miss placed it. I looked. I searched. I turned my home upside down. Finally the moment came when I had to tell my husband that my ring was not where it should be. It was hard to face my husband who put so much love in the idea of this ring not to mention the hard work that he had done to get this ring that its now gone. Do you know what he said? Its just a ring. We are still married. I still love you. Of course he immediately began helping me to look for it in case I had miss placed it but I didn't miss place it. It was taken but now with prayer and hard detective work it is back in it's rightful I mean leftful place. You know what I'm still married and I think we are better for it too. Love is not a ring or a thing it is a commitment to one another. My husband has been wonderful through this whole ordeal and we are closer now because of it.

Award!

I was just awarded a pretty big award from the American Cancer Society. They just recognized me for my outstanding contributions to the Look Good... Feel Better Program. So I got dressed up put on my crown and went to the Relay for Life to receive my award. I was so excited! This is what I am thinking finally all my hard work is paying off. They say a long speech about all that I have done and what I will be doing. So I feeling pretty good. Look at me. Look what I have done. I have helped all of these cancer patients. They call out Amberlee Hayman, Mrs. Mississippi will you please come receive your award. I stand up walk to the stage receive my award and take lots of pictures will all the right people with the biggest smile on my face.

I go to my seat and watch for the relay to begin. Then they start calling out special survivors and the team leaders. This is when I realize these people are the ones that should be getting the awards and then a very small very young little girl comes up to me and she had heard what the Look Good... Feel Better Program dose for women with cancer and she wanted to know if I could make her pretty like I was. It was very hard to hold back the tears because in front of me was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. At eight years old she had been battling cancer for most of her life and had more courage than three grown men and more grace and beauty than any beauty queen I had ever meet.

Just as matter of factually as she had asked me I told her we could get her fixed up. All that being said I have a new out look on life and an even bigger mission than when I started with the American Cancer Society.

The more I work with cancer patients the younger they seam to get. And there is such a thing as a Teen Look Good... Feel Better Program, but there are only seven in the whole United States. Only seven! There are not enough regular Look Good... Feel Better Programs to take care of the women much less seven for all of the young people. Lets make this a time to take care of the next generation until we find a cure for cancer. Making the Look Good... Feel Better program a thing of the past is my goal.