Finding Comfort in the League of Ribbons: A Story of Grief and Hope

I couldn’t stop crying. 

You know when you laugh so hard and can’t stop laughing? Or feel the tears coming and can’t make them stop?

That was me in the League of Ribbons Ambassadors Committee meeting last week. 

Unexpected. 

Out of the blue. 

But not out of place. 

This was the place where my mom received her chemo and had many of her doctor appointments during her cancer battle. I have been there several times since she passed and always stood strong, often there with my children in tow for fundraising runs and events. 

But in this meeting at the Lynn Cancer Institute, Dr. Louise Morrell, medical director and a lead medical oncologist, greeted us all and explained the care and *extra care patients receive after walking down the hallways and sitting in the Lynn Cancer Institute appointment rooms. And right then I had a flashback of moments in the hallways and rooms there with my mom… sitting with her in the appointment rooms waiting on a doctor, listening to a doctor…another diagnosis, another way to try to slow down the cancer in her body. 

Never too young to help | My daughter and my mom at the Lynn Cancer Institute | August 2018

All of these quick memories jumping in my head and all of a sudden, unstoppable tears started to puddle in my eyes. 

I took a sip of coffee to try to distract my mind. I picked up a piece of fruit from my plate and ate it even though I was now not hungry. I tried to put my new readers on to distract my eyes by moving them in a different direction. But my mind, and heart, won over. 

This was the first League of Ribbons Ambassadors Committee meeting and we were to go around the room and introduce ourselves and then brainstorm ways we can help the organization grow. At this point I’m thinking, I am sitting in a room of cancer survivors, cancer doctors, probably current cancer patients and I’m the one who can’t get the words out. I felt weak. I felt stupid. I felt like I had nothing to cry about compared to so many of the challenges others face. 

But in that moment, I missed my mom… and I missed my dad, for me and for my kids. And fear of cancer finding me one day crept in my head too. One way or another, cancer affects us all. 

I stepped out of the room and sat on a nearby chair to take a beat. It was a chair I remembered - just a few years ago, Mom snapped a photo of me there with her.

A quick snap from Mom at the Lynn Cancer Institute | August 7, 2018

Seconds later out walked Jan Dymtrow, a friend who works at the Lynn Cancer Institute as their Community Outreach Coordinator. Jan has known me since I was 6 when I was on her son’s T-ball team, the only girl on the 1986 City of Boca Raton T-ball team ‘featured’ from time to time by Boca News Sports Editor Vin Mannix! Over the years, Jan and her family became dear family friends of ours. She knew all of my big life steps. And she knew I needed someone in that moment. Someone to put their arm around my shoulder. Someone to hand me a tissue. Someone to talk about my mom. And talk me… to calm. 

And there on that day, I realized what many others already know - that the League of Ribbons works wonders. It’s an organization within a cancer center to help all of us through the unexpected emotions, the emotional and financial stresses of cancer, the thrilling ‘I-beat-cancer!’ moments, the random question moments, the treatment moments, creating the yoga moments, the art moments, the supportive moments for grandkids and kids of those with cancer. The high moments. The low moments. All of them. 

It’s quite a place to support, whether or not you get to or get through a meeting.

Next one, sure hope I’ll be able to say my name. And if I can’t, I know Jan will for me. 

The Eugene M. & Christine Lynn Cancer Institute is part of the Baptist Health South Florida system and is one of the largest cancer centers in South Florida, treating an estimated 4,000 newly diagnosed cancer patients each year. The League of Ribbons was created to help ease the emotional and financial stress of cancer so that patients can focus on healing. The League of Ribbons funds many different complimentary health and wellness programs, yoga, and massage therapy and provides gift cards for groceries and gas. If you would like to support the League of Ribbons, send me an email at pk@paigekornblue.com