Resilience Rising

I am taking a day off from my Body Positivity Campaign. I want to take the time to honour a woman who inspired me to turn adversity into a way to help others. 

Jasmin and I went to high school together. We weren't friends in any traditional sense. But we were a small school and everyone in our grade knew each other. So we would talk and laugh together at school. 

We reconnected about 7 years ago and emailed back and forth once in awhile. She read my blog, I read hers. She encouraged my writing and my art. We were friends on Facebook and followed each other's lives through status updates and photos. 

When jasmin was 34, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

"I like to think of myself as a positive person. That theory was totally put to the test in 2011 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty four. Then my mom who had been fighting cancer for 15 years passed away three months after my diagnosis. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself – I thought that remembering to breathe would be a good place to start – and so I did." - Jasmin 

Jasmin took her experience and created an organization called Stretch Heal Grow. They provide a weekend for young women living with breast cancer to learn wellness and self care. 

"My name is Jasmin, I was originally diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 34.  At the time, my youngest daughter was only 7 months old. I found a lump while I was breastfeeding and went to get it checked out. I seriously thought it was just a blocked milk duct, turns out it wasn’t.

I went through several months of chemotherapy, a mastectomy, radiation and reconstruction surgery. During treatment I lost my mother who had been fighting cancer herself for over a decade. It was the most difficult, heartbreaking year of my life, but also a time of so much support, love and personal growth.

Then in November 2013, I was put to the test again as the cancer metastasized to my bones and caused problems with my spine. I had emergency spinal surgery and radiation to try and stabilize my body. So I am now in ongoing treatment and will be for the rest of my life. I am ready to battle for my life because there is still so much life to experience!

Cancer has messed with the wrong girl!

From the day I was diagnosed I decided that I wanted to help others through this difficult and life changing journey in some way.  It is so important to me to be of service and truly make a difference – and that is how STRETCH HEAL GROW came to be. Living with breast cancer is unique to each individual and self care is such key aspect of navigating through it all.

Be Well.

Jasmin"

Jasmin was always glowing and loving. A few years ago I added her photo, after her emergency spinal surgery, to our "wall of resilience" in my classroom. She managed always seemed to find something positive in challenging situations. 

She was a true representation of resilience. 

When I was 18, my best friend died. A few months before she died, she wrote this poem: 

Personal Light 

 

Each of us has our own little light inside

And after we die various things can happen to that light:

Some lights fade away into the darkness and nobody notices or cares about the loss of their light

Some lights shine brightly, but nobody wants or needs their light and some

Even despise the suffering the light brings

Other lights shine with a loving glow that encompasses all

Anyone who has ever felt the warmth of these beams keep a little glimmer of

Them with them wherever they go

These lights remain brilliant and everlasting

Every person chooses which light will shine within themselves and the type

Of light that will shine after them

(you can) light up the world (forever)

 

By Georgia Economides

Saturday June 11, 1994

Shine on Jasmin. 

Much love to her family and friends, especially her 2 little girls. 

xo