DAY 77: June 6, 2020

100 Days Between Life and Death

by Lilia Koch

Cancer had its own plans for her life.

She couldn’t believe what had happened to her. But there was no time to gather her thoughts: She had to immediately plunge into the battle for life. Lilia had just turned 29. She had moved to another country with her 9-year-old son, in search of happiness and a new life. There she fell in love with a handsome German, found her dream job, and it seemed that there was not a cloud in the sky. But the deadly diagnosis had its own plans for her. Cancer burst into her life just when everything was starting to fall into place. It completely destroyed everything that so far had seemed ideal: love, self-confidence, and even her own body. Her young son had to endure the fear of losing his mother and to grow up literally overnight, to become a support for her. And with death breathing down her neck, and her beloved turning away from her, cancer became her only teacher. Cancer, like litmus paper, shows what a person is really made of. It made Lilia learn to find a vital resource within herself—a resource that would not betray her, would not turn away, but would support her and help her find herself, start a new life, even in a situation of gloom, pain, and loneliness. Cancer taught her to choose life at every moment, in all her thoughts and actions.