One afternoon in September 2006, I was playing a video game. I was 12 years old at the time. My game got exciting and then suddenly… my heart stopped….literally.

As I laid on the floor feeling the vacuous feeling of nothing beating in my chest, something happened. I knew instantaneously, how precious and temporary life was. I knew I had experienced a forever lesson; something I would never forget. As I survived that episode and the surgery that followed, I also realized something else. Strangely I was grateful for that lesson I learned on that floor that one very important September afternoon.

Dealing with life and its battles is difficult. I believe with those difficulties also comes certain liberations. I believe, with such life experiences, comes a brilliant understanding of how important some things are – and similarly how unimportant other things are. This knowledge, this conviction, this gift was something I could give to my mother when, in 2009, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

After her diagnosis, I wanted to do something to help my mother through her cancer as she had helped me through my surgery. Parents aren’t as open with their children about their path of treatment, or their feelings. I was afraid my mother wouldn’t listen to my lessons. I was young and she was busy with her battle. I knew one thing for sure; I did not want my mother to come home everyday with a smile on her face and tell me she was fine.

I created Link To The Cure to give my mother and me a tool to take her journey together. Link To The Cure is a series of paper links looped together that hangs on the wall. Each link is a colorful icon which importantly represents the days remaining for cancer treatment. Every day, my mother and I met at the paper chain when she returned from the hospital. We talked about the day and the experience. We talked about our feelings. We celebrated the victories of a quarter of the way through and half way through treatments,and on the last day of treatment, we tore the link into many pieces and thew the remains into the air. The pieces of the link fell around us like confetti. We had traveled the journey together.

I hope you and your loved ones can use this tool to help you communicate, and to travel the journey together. I hope you also realize, as I did, the importance of sharing the process and the lessons.

I wish you the best of health.