ENCORE #178! – Of Pink Shoelaces and Pink Wristbands

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer in March of 2011, there was a deafening silence from the men I knew. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in June of 2012 – almost ten years ago…

One of the main events of my life (after my wedding day, birth of my kids, marriage of my son, and birth of my grandkids) is my almost annual Young Authors Conference.

The event is planned and executed with elan and has been held at various colleges in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for the past 22 years. I’ve been a part of the event – first as a chaperone and eventually as one of the workshop leaders – for at least fifteen of those years. There are lots and lots of people who have made those events special, but there was one yesterday that makes me smile and feel warm inside…

I’ll back up a little to explain that about a year ago, early on in my wife’s breast cancer story, a god friend of ours ordered (what she thought) was a pair of very, very pink shoelaces. She found out, on delivery, that she’d ordered TEN pairs of shoelaces. I took a pair for my own black Reeboks and laced them up.

As I am [was] a high school counselor who was recently a classroom science teacher, I come into contact with 14-18 year olds on a daily, moment-by-moment basis. The day after I put in the laces, a student dashed into my office, stopped abruptly and said, “I like your shoelaces.”

“Oh,” I replied, “I got them because my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

“Oh, man, I’m sorry Mr. Stewart. I hope she gets better…”

From that day forward, I get some sort of comment or other on the shoelaces at LEAST once a week.

Yesterday at the Young Authors Conference, I was heading downstairs for the last time, pulling a suitcase full of books behind me. Passing a pair of young ladies – probably 7th or 8th graders – one of them snickering, said, “I like your suitcase!”

Smiling grimly and knowing EXACTLY how me – a big, old, fat white guy – must look pulling a hot pink suitcase on rollers (that actually belongs to my daughter!), I laughed and said, “Thanks!”

Then she said, “I like your shoelaces, too!”

I stopped, held out my foot and said, “Oh, I wear these because my wife is a breast cancer survivor – a little over a year now!”

Her eyes got big and her face went from teasing laughter to seriousness as she said, “Oh! My grandma had breast cancer!”

Right there, we had a connection – the horror of the initial diagnosis, pain of watching someone we loved go through the treatment, and the joy in a clean diagnosis after a terrible nightmare. For a moment our lives touched and we smiled at each other, two people who had been able to do nothing but love a suffering “someone” we knew and be there for them and pray for them and do anything else we could possibly think of…like wear something pink so that we identify ourselves as a sort of “Pink Horde”…

That made my day. It made my week. It made me thankful for the support I’ve gotten and the support I’ve been able to give.

It made me thankful my wife is healthy, happy and very much alive!

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg