Brave Heart, Brave Soul. She who is brave is free.

Have you ever noticed just how much pink October brings? Yes I know it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month but I sometimes wonder if the stores put up so much pink people become blind to it. Now don't go getting me wrong, I really do appreciate the fact stores scramble to display pink teddy bears, bags and pink ribbon magnets for everyone to purchase but I have to stop and ask myself is this pink washing or helpful to the cause? I guess it started for me when I walked into one of our local grocery stores a few weeks back and was just blown away by what I saw; the whole store seemed to have gone pink. There were signs here and signs there, buy this and buy that. Everything from the soups, to the chips to the go green take home bags were pink or had pink ribbons on them. I was a bit overwhelmed to tell you the truth. I felt as if I was being devoured by a larger than life size pink cotton candy monster! So if I felt this way then how did the rest of the non breast cancer customers

Dear Boobie Fairy, Now I hear it's that time of year again, some call it BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH . A time of year when folk all over the world focus on defeating this beast we call Breast Cancer. She's a real menace you see. Scratching and clawing her way from one boobie to the next. She takes what's not hers and flees without so much as a please or a thank you. I have given this a lot of thought and so if you don't mind my dear I would like to ask you for just a small favor ? One is all I really need for just one has gone missing. Oh please oh please just one wish I need? Just a little bit of pink fairy dust sprinkled over me today if you please? For you see I woke up this morning and realized the breast cancer feign had snatched my left boobie away. Now I stand here looking into a not so magical mirror with only one breast staring back at me. Oh it's not so pretty with wrinkled up skin and an ugly scar spread across the place where

Saturday, October 03, 2009 was a day to remember. On this day I joined over 27, 128 people, 1,194 different teams, 1600 breast cancer survivors and an estimated turn out of over 33, 000 for the 2009 Komen Houston Race For the Cure. We ALL came from different paths, different faiths, different ways of life, different parts of the city and different backgrounds but we ALL came for one reason: To Eradicate Breast Cancer . A sea of survivors, mothers, fathers, little ones, babies in pink slings, children in wagons and teens holding the hands of their mothers and grandmothers walking some 3.1 miles in honor and in memory of those they love turned out to raced and walked together side by side. Yes we were there to make a difference and to raise the battle call but we were also there to remember and to take quiet pause for those we have lost. For just a moment let me share my own thoughtful insight here with those who may ask how 33, 000 women, men and children wearing pink and all kinds

Can you hear the howling wind? I can. The trees are rustling and I am restless. Do you feel the chill in the air tonight? So many forces seem at play right here , right now. Do I regret my path, do I fear the journey ahead? No, but I feel weary already. Time seems to be standing still. I feel as if I have crossed into an alternate reality yet my feet are still planted right here in the ground. The minutes pass every so slowly and with every tick of the clock I grow more aware something is wrong, something is moving, festering, expanding within my breast. Yes the sun has risen in the east today but I know, yes I am painfully aware my life has changed. I am no longer living in youth's blissful denial. No today the call has come.... today I became one of just under 10,000 women under 40 in the US to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. That was 2006. This is 2009 and though many feared they would lose me here I stand. Today, October 1, 2009, marks the beginning of Breast Canc