This has been a strange winter. Things that I have always thought unimaginable happened—things that would be considered terrible by most of us. What started out as an amazing holiday season full of personal triumph quickly morphed into a surreal sort of madness. I was asked to be an adjunct professor speaking on musical theatre at my grad school alma mater. I was thrilled, and I gave a presentation the dean of the school said got raves. Excitedly, I went back to my room at the luxury resort the school had put me up in to get ready to go out with my husband. It was also my wedding anniversary—what an amazing day!

But all the happiness and accomplishment of that moment faded to black at 4:45 that Friday afternoon, as a crying doctor shakily exclaimed to me over the phone that she wanted to make sure I knew as soon as possible:

I had breast cancer.

Invasive ductal carcinoma of the left breast.

Period.

End of sentence.

She wept as I calmly asked her what was next. She wept as she explained to me that I had to find the right team for further evaluation to determine how much it had “spread.” (Her word.) She wept.

Tom Hank’s line from A League of Their Own rang out in my head: “There’s no crying in baseball!” I didn’t cry, but I was definitely hyperventilating. I called my friend Liz, a patient advocate and someone I have known since kindergarten. She said the words that have become my mantra: “One step at a time. Don’t catastrophize.”

So, I pulled myself together and went out to the wedding anniversary dinner with my husband, and then we attended an alumni party where I drank beer and talked to friends about dogs and writing and life. All through the evening my mind raced: I have cancer. I have breast cancer. It’s in me now. What will happen to me? I thought breast cancer was for people who didn’t get their mammograms or had negative attitudes. Ha.

I came out to a few close friends—very close friends. Their responses ranged from extremely supportive to uncomfortable and unable to hear my news. I didn’t want everyone to know. As a writer and a playwright and director, I live in a world of gigs. Of networked connections, of people who don’t want to bother you with work if they know you are “sick.” And the thing about cancer is, no one knows if you are really sick, or a little sick, or terminally sick—especially at first. It’s like riding down a steep hill on roller skates. You don’t know if you can simply sit back on your butt and come to an uncomfortable stop, or if you are destined to fly down the hill like a bat out of hell and crash at some unimaginable—or, in fact, dramatically imagined—bottom. The thing about cancer is that until the first evaluations are complete, you don’t know what your bottom will be.

I did what I know how to do the very best—I researched. (Thank you, years of writing retail trade nonfiction.) I put together a large, three-ring notebook after having consultations with four major cancer centers. I met oncologists and surgeons that ranged from egotistical and underqualified to stellar and lovely and compassionate and brilliant. I chose the right team that did the right surgery for what turned out to be a stage one cancer with a low onco score (Oncotype DX)—which meant no chemo. I have been one of the lucky ones, as friends of mine have told me again and again. But each cancer journey is its own story with a full gamut of experiences and emotions. Each one is singular and specific—a personal journey. My feelings and emotions, and fears and process have all been my own and I am entitled to them. (As are we all!)

I had bronchitis and sinus infections twice each, shingles, vertigo, and anything else my poor body could fall into. And on the last day of radiation, something else happened—COVID-19 reared its ugly head full force, making what should have been a celebratory week one of preparing to isolate and take my immune-suppressed body into hiding with the rest of my small family who were suddenly (and thankfully) working from home.

So where does hope come into this? It would be easy to say there is none. Life sucks and then you die, or squeak by, or hide, or live in complete depression. But I choose to say something else. I have made the decision to be intentionally conscious—even though it’s rarely easy. I have decided to look at each moment and find every single thing I have to be grateful about. From the huge things to the very mundane. From the fantastic news that I didn’t have to do chemo and that my cancer was stage one to the ducks by my lake who greet me every day. From the onco score that says I have only a 4% chance of recurrence to the amazing Netflix shows I have time to watch and the outrageous blessing of an internet that allows me ways to connect to the outside world during this time.

While I went through this part of my cancer journey, I read all the essays that writers submitted to the Hope issue of our literary magazine. People who managed to find something to bring them joy in unimaginable circumstances. People who have chosen to see the blessing of their lives—no matter what sort of illness and what sort of stage they or their loved ones face. These writers are heroic, and instructive, and brave. They have chosen to hone their ability to be hopeful. More than anything else, what I think my own cancer journey has taught me so far is that hope is a skill. It’s an art practiced with thought and intention and resolve—and, well, more practice. Hope is an emotional muscle we work out and improve based on faith and mental strength and that indescribable humanity and compassion that we all have and that we all can use to navigate our private or global calamities.

I want to applaud the 11 nonfiction authors in our Hope issue—the two who have been chosen for their excellent writing on mental health and the other nine who have brought light and intellect and art and wisdom to the wonderful state of being hopeful.

Grace Jasmine is the nonfiction editor of Please See Me.

Header image: Lettering Hope by Patricia Tiffany Morris