What would you think if I told you vincible was a real word? What if I put an” IN” in front of it? From a young age we are taught that we are invincible. Almost all of us understand what being invincible means. What age were you when you found out that you were vincible? I can almost put an exact date on the moment that I realized that bad things do happen to good people and can happen to my family directly. In a matter of 4 months everything I thought I knew about this life and every bad thing that I have ever experienced got hiked up 100%. At first it was shock that overtook my whole body. I remember floating in my Jacuzzi bath tub in the downstairs bathroom. It was the morning of my 53 year old Aunt’s funeral. My second mother, a figure in my life that was so predominant and powerful I kept it locked away in my heart with barbed wire around it, never to think that anything could touch it, never wanting to take my mind there because it was too heavy to even fathom. There I was floating in luke warm water with Coldplay “Fix You” playing on my phone which was propped up on a rag so water wouldn’t get it wet. The water had run from hot to luke warm in what I thought to be 15 minutes, actually turning out to be an hour. Coldplay on repeat ricocheting off the 334 ceramic tiles laid out throughout the whole bathroom that I had somehow managed to count during that hour. My head floating in the water knees tucked in my chest where I held them with my forearms in fetal position. My hair floating on the top of the water swaying ever so gently back and forth as I rocked subconsciously in the water reverting to a child like state. I cried all my tears in the weeks leading up to this day knowing it was going to come. I stared at the tiles expressionless, speechless, unaware of the seconds passing or my 3 year old daughter knocking on the bathroom door because she wanted mommy. She was invincible still. Not a care in the world. Not an understanding of any pain deeper than a scraped knee or bumped head. I’ve heard about loss from other people and always thought to myself, not me thank God. I was 28 years old and the closet thing I had come to losing someone was my Papa Joe dying 4 months before. This was upsetting and devastating of course, but for some reason it was more accepted because at this age a lot of people I knew were losing their grandparents, some even way before this time. I felt heartbroken but my brain accepted it more than when my aunt was taken. I don’t think I knew why or ever could explain what that was other than you weren’t supposed to die at 53 years old. I can sum it all up in one painful, ugly word. Cancer.

I have had heartache in my time, mostly brought on from a young age and when that happens it almost becomes the normal to you and you are used to it, possibly even less affected growing up. I always thought my dad lived this crazy cool life on the beaches in Florida waiting for me to come visit. I knew he was always out of my life or at least I can remember feeling that he was always in Florida. Again, the norm. My brain adapted to this way of life from a young age, and although I would soon come to realize in my adult years that it affected me way more than I understood, at 11 I really didn’t know any better. I was happy and couldn’t wait to keep growing up and do whatever I wanted to because life at home with all my bills paid and food cooked was such a drag.. Insert eye roll emoji here in your mind. When you are growing up you don’t have these concepts worked out in your head yet. Even as adults we sometimes forget how our child mind operated. I was happy. I had a great mom, a little sister, a second mom (my aunt, my mother’s sister), awesome Grammie and Papa (my mother’s parents), a step dad who treated me fairly I would say. Knowing what I do now as an adult, I am not so sure I would be able to step up to the plate and love someone else’s child as my own, but we worked it out. A fortress was built around me to protect me and I was happy. I loved music and playing in the band at school. I remember sitting in my room for hours switching from station to station. The radio was kept in my small closet where I would sit facing the wall waiting for the 9 at 9pm to come on so I could record the songs, only to play back later on repeat until I memorized them. I recorded my age on the inside of that wall where trophies from the many activities I was put in, stood tall and the music played loud and clear. Of course only when the antenna was facing the right direction. Oh to be young and invincible, it’s a beautiful thing.

Did I forget to mention my mom is a 3 time cancer survivor?? Well, that was planned actually. I don’t like to overlap my mom’s cancer with my aunt’s or my Papa Joe’s. You see although they all rang true to the same title each deserves its own explanation. Oh mom, if you could only see the hurt inside my body when I think about our journey through the unknown mine field of cancer. It’s like even though I didn’t have it I felt as if I were going through it myself. Without making it my sob story, this is where I also became familiar with mental health. Another endless mine field filled with anti depressants and anxiety medications to calm the frequent severe panic attacks my family was experiencing at this time. We passed around Xanax like candy while we all sat in waiting room after waiting room, surgery after surgery, bad news after bad news. Family that sits together waiting for bad news, pops pills together? Is that how that saying goes? I’m not sure I forgot, must’ve been a side effect. Wine had become a regular thing for us as well. Coping was not our strong suit.

My aunts daughters, 4 to be exact were all intent on getting humming bird tattoos. My mother and myself as well, my sister wouldn't. Before my aunt died we all planned to get matching humming bird tattoos. It would be my aunt’s first tattoo. We researched the place well. Someone who was great at birds in a little shop on Cicero Ave, not really special at all called Body By Design. She died before our appointment. She loved hummingbirds. 4 of us went and got our own versions of hummingbirds. I furthered that in true Candice impulsive form, by getting some of the flowers we had planted at our family lake house in my aunt’s memorial garden, down my arm. We were all entering uncharted territory at this time, who could blame us. I mean we were realizing we weren’t invincible. Isn’t that the worst thing? We slowly saw the “I” and “N” fade away into what became our new reality. Vincible. I could write a 100 page paper on my mom’s surgeries, double mastectomy, nipple reconstructive surgery, even tattooing of fake nipples, which is a real thing apparently. Matter of fact, as I am writing this paper right now my mom is in surgery to get new implants due to a leaking one. Complications with cancer is almost inevitable. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean.

Good old Loyola hospital! We would go there and decorated bras in honor of the ones we lost and the ones still fighting. Regular radiation appointments, globs of hair in the drain. You get the picture, but have you ever seen burnt radiation skin? It’s black in case you are wondering. Our lives had turned from Sunday dinners playing games and laughing, to breast cancer walks and mountains of pink ribbons and clothes, a silver mirror- like box filled with the remains of my Papa Joe that my grandma keeps on her dresser in her room, a precious moment given to me out of my aunt’s collection, and my mother alive. I can never say enough of how grateful I am that she is here still, but I am also more wise and realistic. I am now Vincible.

I blamed God for all of this and became secluded and defiant against my own religious beliefs. My family, which were closer than any other family that I have met, slowly began doing their own things, growing further apart by the day. This shook the ground of foundation from which I grew. Was that something that age brought on or death brought on is still a mystery to me. I could make an educated guess and say both life and death had to do with that. Still, I blamed God for hurting me like this. I blamed God for my rising addiction to anxiety medications and alcohol. I was lost in a sea of unanswered questions, unsaid goodbyes, and unknown realities. The photograph becomes "surprising" when we do not know why it has been taken; what motive and what interest is there in photographing (page 34, Camera of Lucide, exerpt) I like to think I have brought the element of surprise with my chosen pictures I am sharing. I at least hope that I did. Controversial subjects like religion have always been a lack of interest to me for some reason. Maybe it is that I don’t like to speak of my feelings toward it or my downfall with belief during these years. Growing up I was pretty religious I would say. Went to R.E.P.(religious education program) every Wednesday until I graduated 8^th grade. I was raised Catholic but the title never really interested me. I knew if I prayed to God and did good things only good things could happen. The real education of religion came to me after the bad things happened. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint(Isaiah 40:31) My belief in God after all this has just started coming back to me recently, even after 6 plus years have gone by. I need the strength from him because pills and alcohol didn’t make the word cancer go away. It only gave me a false perception of the reality which I now know to be mine. I am Vincible, and for the first time in a long time, I am content with that, are you?