Celebrate YOUR Life

     Ever had a conversation with someone that shaped who you wanted to be as a person? Ever had it end in a promise? At 5 years old I had such a conversation with the woman I describe as the pillar of my soul. Minnie Ruth Fields, my Meemaw, was a woman of wisdom, faith, and straight forward conversations. She’s half the genes I get my missing brain to mouth filter and stubbornness from. The other half is my great granny and she’s the same kind of woman too. I love and admire those two more than anything in this world. If you met them you’d understand. But anyway, at 5 years old I sat on my Meemaw’s lap as she told me the truth about the world and it led to the life changing event that happened August 3,2018. Here’s what she said:
     “The world isn’t full of nice people. Not everyone is gonna care about others. The world is a hard place to live and a lot of people don’t have hope or faith anymore. There aren’t many people able to change the world for the better anymore. You’re gonna be one of those people. You’re going to make the world a better place. It’s not gonna be easy. Remember to always treat others as you wish to be treated. Don’t you ever stop being loving, and kind, and caring. No matter how mean or nasty or hurtful everyone else is. You’re gonna make a difference, you’re gonna be what I couldn’t. Promise me. Promise me you’ll make the world a better place.”
     That day I made her that promise and on Friday August 3, 2018 I succeeded in keeping that promise. After over a year of planning I helped give back to 60 cancer survivors and their families. We made women who no longer felt attractive feel beautiful again. We gave the husbands, wives, girlfriends, brothers, sisters, friends, and children of those survivors the smiles and people back that they’d been missing. You guys, I got to watch my mama feel beautiful again. She smiled and laughed and enjoyed herself for more than just a few minutes. She did it for a whole day! That hasn’t happened in almost 2 years. It was beautiful. The survivors were beautiful. It was so very imperfectly perfect that it wasn’t pretty but it was beautiful.
     Putting something like that together is hard work. And on the day of, trying to keep the chaos moving in the direction we wanted it to go kept me on my feet and moving non-stop. I didn’t take the time to stop and take pictures but I did take the time to talk with some of the survivors. They changed my life. I had gotten to know a few from previous survivor events and others from helping them with their dress fittings. I actually even got to “assist” with the portrait session of one the survivors I had gotten to know previously. We had to have a heart to heart talk. She’s a stunningly gorgeous soul, the fact that she survived cancer and still looks like that would make your jaw drop. She can’t see anything but the scars and what-if comparisons. I wanted her to see what I see. Y’all I admitted to a woman twice my age, that survived cancer, that I wished I looked like her and she laughed at me. I was serious! So the whole time she had her session I stood behind Gail, the photographer who’s dream made the whole event happen, and made faces to get her to laugh so she wouldn’t feel self-conscious. It made my heart happy to do it.
     After it was all said and done I had more survivors hug me and thank me than I could count. I hugged each and every one back and thanked them for making it possible. If only they could understand they were making an even bigger difference than we were.
     To have been able to make something with such an astonishingly positive affect on so many people from something that has negatively impacted my life for so long was surreal. I honestly don’t know if I can put into words how I feel. I feel it in my soul. It’s big and it’s wonderful and I know my Meemaw would be proud. I got to share it with people I love. I also got to share it with people who care as much as I do, I really didn’t think there were so many of us out there. We all came together and made the world a better place. We changed lives and we get to do it all again next year! Oh yeah, did I forget to mention Celebrate YOUR Life is becoming a 501c nonprofit? Go big or go home, right. I feel abundantly grateful to have been able to keep my promise, make someone’s dream come true, and have so many people step-up and change the world. It may sound crazy but I think cancer has helped me find my calling.

TTYS,

Aleena