By Basia Alicia Powell
This week I had to dig deep. It’s not easy seeing families lose their loved ones to any form of cancer. For me breast cancer is personal. Two beautiful women gone just like that . A day apart. I look at my 21 year old self in this photo, and I wish I could ask her back for the cancerfree body, her fearless attitude todays life, her drive and determination to succeed.
She had a drive like no other. Ain’t nobody could tell her she was not ‘di business’. In fact, she is sitting with a guy in this photograph that she had no business being with because she was and still is a queen, (so I cut him out of the picture).
She knew how to have fun, but she was not happy. She would later come to know happiness intimately and write a book on it. She learned her true worth a little later than she should have, but she still ended up with a fabulous life. Cancer is a part of her journey, not her journey.
I realised today that everyone has an internal battle to fight. Some we win, some we lose. For some its cancer, for others it is some other kind of pain or illness. Whatever, the struggle, it can bring out same kind of ugly in you, if you allow it.
This girl in the picture, was seeking happiness externally. The girl writing this post found happiness internally. I believe that trials come to keep us in check, and make us grow. We don’t acquire strength from a perfect existence . Strength comes from our ability to endure and overcome pain. As the saying goes,
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. “
My husband reminded me today that the road is always rough before they pave it! #Facts. So this week, I drove down a rocky road called shock and grief, but it will not define me. I will keep on driving until the road becomes smoothe again.
Yes life can be rough, but that depends on the road you stay on. The important thing is to grow through, what you go through. I had to take a look at this baldheaded ‘Trini girl’ who was determined to ‘make it’ and left her all family at age 21 and migrated to Jamaica.
I took this photograph right before I left to start my new life, not knowing where I was going to live, if they would like me or if it would work out. All I knew was I could not stay where I was. It just wasn’t enough.
That is how I felt this week.
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