The Edge of the Cliff

What a tiny freckle taught me about fear, relief, and the fragility of life.

I let out one of those guttural, animalistic sighs when I reached the top of the mountain and miraculously got service. The text said: “Your results came back benign.” Just like that, my body exhaled, like it had been holding its breath for two straight months. That sound rolled out of me without warning. Relief can feel like a high sometimes. Tears stream, your body softens, and you realize just how much pressure you’ve been carrying since the doctor called to say, “You have melanoma in situ.”

It was a tiny freckle. The size of a Sharpie dot. Not irregular, not growing. But just dark enough to raise concern. They removed it for biopsy, the results came back, and then they brought me back in to remove more around it to be safe. I’ve been holding my breath ever since waiting on the second biopsy results.

But the moment I got my good news, someone I love, someone I consider family, got the opposite. Stage 4 melanoma. A name I’ve feared for months now. While I was breathing out, she was gasping in.

And that’s the lesson, isn’t it?

That we are capable of feeling joy and heartbreak at the exact same time. Of being grateful for our own healing while our hearts break for someone else’s battle. Life is both. The celebration and the grief. The high and the low. The text that says you’re okay, and the call that says someone else isn’t.

Today reminded me how precious this life is. How connected we are. How quickly things can change. And that I don’t want to waste another year, another moment, forgetting what really matters.