This past weekend marked a milestone for me: my first cancerversary. It’s not quite a birthday, and it doesn’t feel like a celebration in the usual sense. Celebrating survival felt absurd — joy colliding with the brutal reality of what was endured. A cancerversary is something else entirely; they're strange mile markers that are complicated, layered, and deeply human. There aren't any balloons or cake, just reflection.
In the weeks leading up to it, I had been thinking about how to commemorate everything I was feeling:
I felt overjoyed — still here, still breathing, still laughing with my daughter and husband, our family and friends, and holding all of them close. That kind of joy is its own fierce miracle. But it’s not the same joy as blowing out candles and making a wish either. Survival joy is quieter, heavier, laced with the memory of everything it took to get here. It doesn’t show up with balloons, but sometimes it does sneak in with a belly laugh when I least expect it.
I felt guilty. A friend of mine passed of stage 4 colon cancer a few months before I was diagnosed. One of her last texts to me was: "Thanks for getting wild with me!" She was unconditional love and fun embodied. She doesn’t get a cancerversary to mark. I do. And the unfairness of that lives like a stone in my chest.
I felt scared and angry, too. Joy and grief would almost be enough to hold, if not for the lump my doctor recently found and the quiet voice whispering: it might be back. Cancer teaches you to never fully trust your own body again.
And yet, I felt strong. I’ve already been forged once in this fire. Fear may sit beside me, but so does resilience. If my cancer is back, it will meet a different woman. One who's already walked through hell in bare feet and is still standing. I’ll fight with everything I have. Again.
So how do I honor the struggle while celebrating the triumph? What would be a worthy tribute to symbolize what it really means to mark survival, memory, and renewal all at once?
I decided to build a garden. To give all these contradictions a place to root. To let each feeling bloom or wither in its own time, while the soil still holds. And hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of soil and compost back and forth across my yard was an excellent way to channel all my recent anger. Also, the best way to flip off death is to plant something that will outlive you.
The plants I've chosen to include are living symbols of my feelings, rooting them deep to carry them forward through the seasons. Flowers that don't just bloom despite adversity, but because of their refusal to be defeated by it.
Red-Twig Dogwood — beauty in hardship; its stark, unapologetic branches, blaze bright red even in winter. Rage and beauty intertwined.
Snowdrops for overcoming challenges and marking the arrival of brighter days. Delicate but unbreakable, they bloom in the teeth of winter's last tantrum; white bells ringing out victory before anyone else dares to believe.
Crocus for hope and resilience. They push through frozen ground while snow still threatens. Small acts of defiance that prove spring always wins.
Daffodils for joy and new beginnings. Bold white and yellow trumpets announcing that surviving isn't just about enduring the dark, but about choosing to shine brighter because of it.
Grape hyacinths for rebirth and renewal — they spread like purple gossip, multiplying their joy year after year. Proof that some things get stronger when they're broken open and scattered.
Echinacea for healing and inner strength; they refuse to bow to heat or storm.
At the heart of my garden I've chosen to plant a saskatoon serviceberry, which provides something beautiful to witness in every season: spring blossoms, summer berries, fiery fall color, sculptural winter form. New beginnings, flourishing joy, change embraced, strength and endurance in stillness.
I also placed a lavender rose quartz at the base of the serviceberry, a stone for remembrance. So the memory of my friend roots into mine, and I carry her with me.
Every year, I’ll tend this soil as I tend my own scars. Every season, I’ll watch life die back and push through again. Renewal is not just something that happens in nature. It’s something we choose, over and over, when life gives us no choice at all.
Maybe that’s what cancerversaries really are: not celebrations of survival alone, but tending rituals. A way to keep planting ourselves back into life, no matter what season we’re in. Surviving cancer isn’t the end of my story. It’s the plot twist that reminded me I was always the author - and the rest is still mine to write.
In grit and grace,
P.S. I didn't include a picture of my garden yet since right now you'd only see beds of dirt (I planted bulbs for the snowdrops, crocus, daffodils, and grape hyacinths) and a few plantlets of red-twig dogwood and serviceberry. The echinacea will need to be planted in the spring. But here is a close-up of the red-twig dogwood and serviceberry plantlets before I put them in the ground.
