After 20 years, I had run out of fingers and toes to count. Each year on my cancer survivor anniversary, after my check-up, I would stand in front of the University of Southern California Norris Cancer Center and hold up a finger for each year I had made it while George snapped a photo. When I got to year ten, George joked that I would have to start using my toes.
In the evening, we celebrated at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena, where we had celebrated the end of my treatment. On my first anniversary, when the server asked if it was a special occasion George responded, with his hug of a smile and booming voice, that we were toasting another year of his beautiful wife’s cancer survival.
“People are starting to look at us,” I whispered, a little embarrassed. My husband, who had a gift for saying the right thing at the right time, replied: “That’s because you’re the prettiest woman in the room.”
As the years passed, our survivor anniversary date expanded to family and friends, and we had fun sharing humorous stories about how we had survived the year. My favorite was when I had lost almost all my hair during chemo, and I awoke one morning with just a tuft of red hair on the top of my head.
George looked at me and started singing “haha hahaha, it’s the Woody Woodpecker song.” One glance in the mirror and I started laughing with him. Those were the moments that got me through.
About the time I was running out of toes to count anniversaries on, we discovered that George had an invasive, inoperable cancer. The only time he ever missed what became known as George’s party for Patricia was a few weeks before he died. We stayed home and celebrated the 30 years we had been married and the 20 years of my survival. He made me promise to continue my anniversary party after he was gone and assured me he would always be there, “one way or another.”
This week, on my 27th survival anniversary, I honor that promise and the man who meant it when he vowed that he would love me until death parted us.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.