Bursting with bawdy reverie 20 minutes earlier, the museum was now in shock. The director of the Breast Cancer Resource Center took the stage. “This,” she said, “is what we do all the time — rally around and support those who the disease knocks down.” She said that the other models wanted the show to go on. And so it did. At the evening’s close, we were told the woman was stable and breathing on her own. More rivulets of black mascara.

We all have our ways of dealing with death and mortality. It’s been six years since I finished my chemo treatments. For the next two years, I lived with an urgency to look at every blue sky and to milk every sunset for the last rays of the day. I was a resource for a steady flow of newly diagnosed women and raised money for the cause.

My daughter, 9 at the time, and I scoured the neighborhood on bulky trash day, collecting discarded lawn mowers in alleys and tossing them into the back of my old pick-up. We took them home, painted them pink and distracted ourselves from our fears. With 12 pink mowers and another 12 pink grass clippers, the Cut Out Cancer Precision Lawn Mowing Drill Team marched in the Race for the Cure. My 72-year old mom wore majorette boots and marched holding our “drill team” banner for the entire race. Even my Dad, 78 and more accustomed to a red Toro, gamely pushed a pink mower that day.

I’ve learned we all have stuff we are dealing with, whether it be cancer, a sick child or parent, a lost chance at something we desired in our heart of hearts. As the years have passed since my diagnosis, I’ve told myself it’s not coming back, and I’ve transitioned from cancer survivor back to private citizen, from urgency back to complacency.

Surrounded Saturday night by women bravely dealing with this unwelcome visitor, that jolt came back — the reminder that life is indeed fragile and short. (How do we manage to forget?) Doing what you truly love each day is the difference between existing and living. Are you doing what you truly love? If not, how can you get there? Are you passionate about your work? Do you have a dream you own, a purpose? If not, take the time to reach into your soul and define one. Embrace it and strut down the runway of life with all you’ve got.

Let’s make a pact to cheer each other on.

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