It’s a quiet night. I’m sitting outside, looking up at a sky that can’t decide if it wants to fully reveal itself. Clouds move slowly across it, soft and unbothered. Not many stars tonight—just enough light to remind me they’re still there.
A cool wind passes through the trees, and somehow even the leaves feel alive with it—like they’re singing, moving just because they can. And I find myself listening.
There’s a strange peace in me tonight. Not loud. Not celebratory. Just… steady. Like something inside me finally stopped running.
This morning, memories came through my phone—old photos, moments that feel like they belong to another version of me. Not distant in time, but in state of being.
Two years ago, everything felt like collapse happening all at once. Health. Emotion. Relationships. Life breaking into pieces in ways I didn’t know how to name at the time.
Cancer is a word that changes the air in a room before it even leaves your mouth.
But even that word… even that chapter… it didn’t end up being only what I thought it would be.
Because cancer…
was a teacher.
It taught me how to receive
when all I ever knew
was how to give.
It showed me the strength
inside asking for help—
something
I am still learning.
Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors…
they became a kind of quiet foundation beneath me.
And then there were the invisible hands—doctors, nurses, the ones who move through hospital halls making everything function without needing to be seen.
Moments of care I once would have passed through without noticing.
Now I do.
Now I remember.
Hands that showed compassion in ways words never could…
brushing my hair,
pausing,
smiling,
being there.
Small gestures that didn’t feel small at all.
And beneath all of it, something quieter was happening too.
A breaking down of who I thought I had to be.
A slow return to something more honest.
I don’t know if you ever fully “finish” learning something like this. Maybe it keeps unfolding in layers you only recognize later.
But tonight, under this clouded sky, I feel it clearly:
Some storms don’t just take things away.
Some storms teach you how to stay.
Maybe Wave 16 is about learning that survival was never the end of the story… just the beginning of seeing differently.
—TodayWaves
TodayWaves 