Dear Jo,
It's the morning after my last chemo session and I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a jar of buttons no one sorted.
For months I couldn't look at them — they reminded me of all the unfinished things. But today I lined them up by color, not because it matters, but because my hands needed something quiet to do.
Then my aunt showed up unannounced. She lives two states over. She said she just wanted to see if I was still me.
I laughed and showed her the buttons. She didn't ask about cancer. She just picked up a brown one and said it looked like the coat her father wore.
We sat there for an hour, her telling stories I'd heard before, me nodding. I realized I was still me. Not the person I thought I'd become through all this — just the same person, a little more aware of what matters.
Night audit, suburbs, youngest by eleven years — none of that changed. But the morning after the last round, with an aunt who drove six hours to check on me, I saw it clearly: becoming isn't turning into someone new. It's finally recognizing who you've been all along.