Living in southern Louisiana, I’ve known a life of storms, hurricanes, and floods…

…both literally and figuratively, my life has been full of ’em.

This year, although the summer of 2014 went easy on us in terms of the literal hurricanes, we had no clue of the figurative category 5 hurricane headed our way, with no plan of evacuation in order. We needed to ride this one out.

Which we did.  Together.

If there’s anything I learned from my family, growing up, it was how to enjoy a good “hurricane party!” (And If you’ve ever been down here, we even have a mighty tasty drink named “the Hurricane”, which I’m sure  holds its namesake after our culture’s ability to celebrate in the midst of chaos, and generally throw actual “hurricane parties!” Not because we’re clueless or careless, but because we stick together and find the silver lining in the clouds.  I’m proud of where I come from.)  I actually got excited for tropical storms, hurricanes, and such as a kid! Apparently , I had no real clue of any present dangers.  I felt safe by the strong reassurance and game face positivity of my parents that I was fine.  So, instead… I enjoyed the little candles around the house, the tiny black and white t.v. that we had to wind every so often to watch and gather closely to snuggle up to see (My bros actually had to snuggle with me to watch… Woo hoo!).  I even liked eating devilled ham and Vienna sausages and all the canned goods that were never on our super health nut diets. (Sorry for the gag reflex I just caused you…I’ll refrain myself on further details)  I loved watching my brothers and my dad canoe down the driveway and street, from my dry place indoors, begging my mom to go out with them to splash in the mucky water.  Yet, I loved every moment spent watching the beautiful lightning storm on the couch in a cozy blanket with my mom that night when all were safe inside again, just as she did with her free-spirited grandmother who encouraged her, just as she would encourage me the next morning…

to go out, and DANCE IN THE RAIN!

I had a real DANCE IN THE RAIN Moment this Summer like no other:

This summer, something beyond magnificent happened.  So magnificent that I haven’t talked about it much on Facebook, or here on my blog.  Why?  Because I haven’t even unpacked it.  I’m still processing the experience.

You see, dancing in the rain in my back yard or in my driveway was special to me, not just because it was fun to splash in the puddles or because my mom was giving in to my mischievous side (and hers, for that matter).  Moreover,  it had an extra flair of fun for me because…

I AM A DANCER!

I don’t just mean the kind of dancer that dances in her car at red lights regardless if anyone is watching, or makes family dance parties and “Just Dance” Wii games her daily workouts as if its her job, who jumps at the chance to swing dance with her brother (the priest) any chance she gets, or has no problem starting the dancing on a dance floor at a party/reception/bar/whatever with or without a drinky-drink in my system and may or may not bust a few Michael Jackson moves or bring back “the robot” even if dressed in formal wear.  That’s all well and good.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’ve literally grown up living and breathing dance.  It’s kept me going.

I spent most of my life in dance classes, and nearly every Saturday of my life from 8am until 4 or 5pm at my studio as a “Dance Player” for the “Creative Dance Studio” founded by the great Rosemerry Hanian.  She was graceful, she was godly, she taught us to dance from our heart, our gut, and our soul, and brought something out in each and every one of us that trickled down into our dancing like magic.  To watch her dance and be in her presence, you just wanted to be more, dance more, push more, and transform into something above and beyond yourself when the music started.  That’s what she did for us when she settled the pin down each time on her record player in our tiny old stained glass window church-turned-dance-studio in the heart of our small town in Covington, Louisiana.  The lights poured through the colored glass windows while the hum of the fans blew, vacant from any central air in the heat of the deep South’s summer days, and her handheld drum beat to keep us in time as we followed her steps across the floor and practiced our jumps from one corner to the other with no mirrors, but only her eyes to see if we were or weren’t up to par.  Yet we trusted her and her word, and every word of each teacher whom she mentored and passed the torch to, as we continued to follow in time around like little ducks.  I know I still look up to each and every one of them and kept them in mind even as I danced through each of my pregnancies, remembering fondly how they kicked butt with their pregnant bellies and danced like beasts like it was nothing but a thang handled each pregnancy while teaching dance so gracefully and beautifully while tending to other children (Tara Baudean & Carolyn Gaudea), that I wanted nothing more than to do the same. They had set the bar high. (Pun intended! Ha!… I just couldn’t help myself. Sorry!)

Any who …

This summer, something I never could have imagined since she passed so many years ago and so many of us have grown up and moved on in our lives and vocations.

We reunited, many of us, to dance again.

These girls have been such a support to me from all over the country … and the world.

One particular dancer and family friend since birth, Renee Burvant (now Mother Agnes Maria, mother of her order in Peru. Yup! You heard that right, she’s a dancing nun!), after coming to visit shortly after I’d lost my hair early in my diagnosis last Fall, felt in prayer that she needed to come back here to do a dance benefit for God and for our family.  She wanted to reunite the dancers that we’d grown up dancing with and do a benefit called “Magnificat: Dance to the Glory of God“.  Well, get a passionate nun fired up about something, and there’s just no stopping them!

She was one beautiful dancer when we were all growing up, in fact, as I was a few years behind her, I looked up to her so much and hoped to be just like her.  Since settling in to her vocation and becoming the mother of her order in Peru, she felt called to dance again as a ministry there.  I tell ya, to see her dance is an experience like no other!

She is truly a muse for the Big Guy. She is not of this world.

So, being that she lives as a missionary in Peru, putting this together here would be enough to make me pull my hair out if I’d had any a “challenge”, then she called upon another dear sister-in-dance right here, Kristen (Naquin) Johnson, who contacted dancers all over the country, recorded “Renee’s” choreography and dancing when she was in town, sent it to out of towners and taught it to those here, coordinated and directed rehearsals and through a lot of back and forth calling to Peru, etc., with “Renee“, they pulled the most touching performance… ever.  In fact, I’d say this show became so much more than a show.  It was an “experience”.

Dancers and dance teachers flew and drove in from all over, reuniting to rehearse and perform after so many years in the theater that I’ve literally grown up in with my mom as the director since 1987 and they shared memories on and off stage in so many musicals with Rosemerry working alongside my mother, pulling it all together as director and choreographer.  A role that I feel honored to have taken on in hopes to make my dance teacher to smile down upon me and proud.

Ya know what was extra cool?

Just one month out of my surgery that I was struggling a bit with my recovery, I made it my goal to get out there… and …

I GOT TO DANCE, TOO!!!

I cannot express what it felt like completely.  In rehearsal, it was hard.  My mind has been foggy and having trouble recovering thoughts or memories quickly these days.  I word search some times.  I get true tastes of what they call “chemo brain“, making choreography pretty tricky to comprehend at times.  My right arm that I’m going to physical therapy for and my abdominal muscles that were still healing from my recent abdominal and uterine surgery forced me to adjust a lot of movements and use every other muscle in my back and legs to lift and balance so as to not strain there. But, I was determined.  Dancing and performing is in my blood.   It felt so good to do that first rehearsal out of surgery, and felt like a major setback all at the same time.  But just like everything this past year,  I knew I could get past it, and I knew how much it meant to me.  So I kept going.   And, thank God….

DANCING THAT NIGHT FELT MORE AMAZING THAN ANY OTHER TIME DANCING EVERY BEFORE.  THAT NIGHT, WE DANCED FROM OUR GUTS, FROM OUR HEARTS AND OUR SOULS.  WE TRULY DANCED TO THE GLORY OF GOD AS THE BENEFIT HAD BEEN NAMED.

I was blessed to dance in the first piece (pictured above), a dance without music but to the words of a poem by St.John Chrysostom in which he mentions a few lines such as these…

“Dance is a movement of life. All creation is in motion…”

“As humans, the pulse beat of our hears is the basis for individual rythms…add to this plus, the God-given creative urge, toward communication through body language.. and we have the dance…”

“St.Ambrose said, ‘The Lord bids us dance … not merely with the circling movements of the body, but with pious faith in him.’ Doing this we become more human, more creative, more Godlike.  We bring the world into our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies… in prayer, in love, in faith and in hope.”

This dance, these words, are forever engraved in each or these dancers minds and bodies, as Mrs.Rosemerry taught us, we easily fell right back in line in rehearsal after so many years, as if it were yesterday.  But now, with a maturity and understanding of the words.

As Mrs.Rosemerry had taught us, “Dance is the soul in motion.”

We danced that dance with our souls open and our hearts bursting out on the dance floor.  I believe people on the back row or even in the parking lot could feel it.

We took a graceful bow, turned to thank James Killeen, our reader and dear friend, and I did my quickest dancer walk/run offstage ever to change costumes for the very next dance.  The next, a song that was so close to my heart because of the song itself (“By My Side” from Godspell that I’d sung in highschool and had sung in prayer through tough nights during treatments this year) and because the choreography itself, depicted the story of my diagnosis and journey this past year.  Although, the funny thing is, when Kristen Johnson choreographed the piece and set me as the center of the dance over 2 years ago, we knew nothing of my cancer or what the dance was about, but now we knew.

As the dance ended, my hands lifted in hope to God and eyes lifted to Heaven, the lights went to black.  Rather than bowing, I stepped out into the audience and sat with my family in the center to then watch the rest of the show that they then danced for me and my family, as they’d kept it all a secret from me (I left each rehearsal after my dances, never to know or see what they were up to).  My mouth was wide open enough to catch flies in awe of their beauty, more amazing than I’d ever remembered them to be before.  They were women now.  They were confidant, uninhibited, and not afraid.  They danced with meaning and with power.  They reached out into that audience and grabbed our hearts.  There were few dry eyes in the audience.  Not because the dances were sad.  They weren’t.  The dances were full of life!  The entire night was full of hope and love and LIFE!  The power, the vulnerability, and the beauty of it all was so overwhelming, it was hard to hold back the tears.

A few shots of the show…still doesn’t do justice, but hey:

(The shots are blurry, I know, but it’s all I have from what people have sent me on good ol’ Facebook. If you have more, PLEASE, send them my way!)

And for the grand finale of this post, and of the evening, was their “piece de resistance”.  They surprised me beyond belief with a finishing touch like no other.  I have no idea how they came up with this, how they kept such a secret from me (especially since both my 4-year-old daughter and my 4-year-old niece were involved… that’s a feat in itself!), but they did.

As one of my all time fave bands and songs “U2: Beautiful Day” played, each and every dancer reentered onto the stage (two by two), eventually even every one of my family members from the audience as well, holding signs in which they’d written “One Word that Describes Elise”, as the first sign stated in the beginning of the piece.  As the chorus of “Beautiful day” played each time, they would flip their signs to show the word “Beautiful”.

Umm..  Err..  Uhh..

WOW?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite like that before.  I was so totally, unbelievably humbled, overwhelmed, surprised, in awe, touched….

FLABBERGASTED.

That’s the word.  I’ve never really had use for that word (if it is a real one) until now. But there ya go.

………

At the beginning of all of this crazy nonsense of breast cancer, I felt like I had an OPPORTUNITY on my hands to embrace true beauty and break through some barriers of all the nonsense that I suffered through of body image and self worth/self conscious crapola that so many girls deal with (and I’m sure guys, too).  Being a mother of 4 girls and one boy, I pray so hard that they never have to deal with eating disorder junk like I did or ever question their beauty.  When I heard I was going to lose my hair, I thought, “Well, maybe here’s my chance.  Maybe now, at these early ages with my children, they’ll learn the true meaning of what beauty is.  Maybe they’ll see past physical characteristics and we can learn about the heart and cherish each other for who we are.  Maybe they’ll remember this time and it’ll change the course for them so they will redefine beauty.”

When I watched all of these people whom I love and respect with all of my heart stand there and hold up those signs, on which each of them had written something about my children’s mother that they would use to describe me … and none of them had to do with my hair or any physical characteristics (which I loved, by the way!), yet when they flipped them over … their cards said “Beautiful!”  I felt more beautiful and loved than ever ever before.

I hope I never forget that moment.  I hope my girls never forget that.  I hope my son never forgets it.  I hope everyone there never forgets that.

**WORDS LIKE: Brave, strong, mommy, mighty, silly, compassionate, kind, fun, goofy, loving, sunny, graceful, positive, ….

…and whatever makes YOU beautiful and helps YOU to “DANCE IN THE RAIN” and keep your “SOUL IN MOTION”… that’s redefining beauty for YOU and every person you encounter.

………

I pray with my children every morning:

“BE A LIGHT OF CHRIST TO EVERYONE YOU MEET TODAY;

AND SEE A LIGHT OF CHRIST IN EVERYONE YOU MEET TODAY.”

I may add now,

Find the beauty in all those you meet, and share the TRUE beauty inside you.  I pray you do the same.  And when you do,

Invite those you meet…

TO DO A LITTLE DANCING IN THE RAIN.  IT’S GOOD FOR THE SOUL.

TRUST ME.

………..

 

 

NEARLY 1 YEAR AGO:

Was it really just last summer that we were all at home enjoying our new baby(“Snuggles“) and our new puppy, taking life easy and enjoying the day to day life as it came… just as summer should be.  I gotta admit, I got overwhelmed often with all the little mouths to feed, carpooling everyone around in our filled to the brim (now clostrophobic swagger wagon ), finding it pretty a hard to just stop and smell  the roses  the sticky faces in the house and play with them, instead of just keeping my eyes and mind elsewhere with my chores while occupying my precious fam with other “stuff”.  I needed a reality check in a major way.  Not that this is why I got one, but, it became one of the many blessings in disguise to appreciate how cool my crew over here really is.

Although hurricane season 2014 on the Gulf coast went easy on us, in our household, just outside of New Orleans, 

…we had no idea what storm was about to hit us.

Throughout that summer, I recognized a lump while nursing my baby, hoping this possibly clogged duct would simply unclog, but … not so much.

I knew.

In, July, I went in.

After seeing my OBGYN mid July, my biopsies and tests were handled during the last 2 weeks of July (summer of 2014). Then my kids’ school packet day and orientation began during the first week of August as more tests ran while i waited the inevitable, smiling all the way through new teacher meet and greets, etc., …and the final diagnosis… STAGE 3 BREAST CANCER… was given during the kids’ first week of school.  I kept it amongst my husband, our parents and our siblings until the weekend when we could tell the kids.  Then we contacted our close friends and family before we sent out the email (below) to our school faculty, parish, and friends.  I tossed back a cup of joe as I quickly typed it up Sunday morning before heading to church to  nervously yet bravely walk through those doors, to face the world with a whole new cross to bear, but knowing we needed our community and some Jesus in our lives now more than ever!

Needless to say,

This summer (of 2015), although my summer is just as chaotic, if not, more (as I’m still in my last legs of chemo … juggling infusions, physical therapy, summer fun with the kids all at once),  I cherish it all!  I take deep breaths before every moment before those possible freak out “She-Hulk opportune scenes” could arise, remembering that I AM HERE!  Just being here to be amidst the hub-ub of my kids’ life and trials means I’m winning. I still get to be the mama. Cancer didn’t steal that one.

 “Nah nanny boo boo!”

AND THAT IS PRETTY DARN COOL!  So, how could I complain.  I’m thankful to be here to be part of all of this blessed chaos and involved with my kids’ craziness.  I almost wasn’t.  

Thank you God.

And thank you to all of those who read this email last year, shared it, received our news, and at whatever part of our journey, joined us and continue to be a part. I wouldn’t be where I am, feeling strong for these last legs with out you.

REMISSION in the FALL.. I’M COMIN TO GET YA!!

…………………………………………………………..

THE EMAIL…

Pardon any typos, as I quickly typed this while also shouting through the office doors for the kiddos to get their church shoes on and finish up their pancakes! 😉  Never a dull moment…

Hope this email may help someone else out there who just, unfortunately, may find themselves in the frazzled, nervous, but ready to “get-er-done” shoes that I was in nearly one year ago

(My desperate shout out for a “Village”)

……………..

August 2014

Hello to our MQP family of teachers and friends,

I don’t have the email for everyone, so you all may spread this as you wish, but I wanted to touch base with those of you that I know have and will this year be working so closely with my big crew of kiddos. You may forward this to the rest of the faculty, friends, or anyone you see fit.

I was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  We’ve been back and forth doing doctor visits, tests, scans for past 2-3 weeks and now it’s moving really fast.  Thursday, we got our first results that I had “invasive ductal carcinoma” (cancer within my milk ducts of my right breast) and a tumor within the lymph nodes under my right arm.  They said it’s moving fast and furious and we need to contain it fast.  It was at a stage 3 (while another doc questioned it to be a stage 4).  They quickly got me an appointment the very next morning with the best of the best, Dr. Stolier, at the St.Charles Center for Breast Cancer and Reconstruction.  He further investigated to find that this cancer has been there for a few years actually and could very well be in other areas of my body. I now needed to leave to see an oncologist.  Again, I was able to get an appointment with another amazing, best of the best doctor, Dr.Jay Saux at the Mary Bird Perkins Center here in Covington, for this week who has already called directly and given me his cell to get me going with more MRI’s, echocardiograms, and a PET scan this week before I see him either Wednesday or Thursday once those are completed.  Long of the short, I will need some fast and furious chemo, followed by a mastectomy, then radiation, and finally, reconstruction.  That’s the grand scheme of it at this point.  Whew!

Funny thing is, I’ve somehow known this in my gut for a while and I feel like God has been preparing me in prayer.  It’s strange.  I knew it before I even found anything,  I just felt it in my heart when everyone said it was probably just a clogged milk duct and keep nursing,  or when I first went to each doctor,  I knew.  God is giving me some kind of drug-like state of grace right now.

This is where our faith will really come in handy.  Having 5 kids, doing ministry and never “making sense on paper” or feeling like we’re “swimming upstream” in comparison to the norm most of the time, has made us have to trust in God A LOT.  Every choice we’ve made as far as jobs, home, … having each child has been a true discernment process, even though I’m sure it seems I merely blink and am pregnant! (Haha!) However, we feel God has guided us all along and has always taken care of us when he’s asked us to walk through doors that I feel like it seems don’t make sense, or we just shouldn’t.  I pray, to God each time, “Lord, open the doors you want open and close the doors you want closed.”  And I’m always surprised at what’s next!  He’s never let us down and he led us here to Mary Queen of Peace, to a parish and school so welcoming and full of love and community.  Our kids KNOW they are loved and that’s what means the utmost to me.  The very hardest part of all of this cancer ordeal is to think… “What about my kids??” That’s the one thing that makes me cry.  I know that God will take care of me, but I have to trust He will take care of them.  After all, they were His first.  They are just on loan to me.  I also KNOW that He led us to you all as part of the many uncanny things in our life that, we feel, have prepared us for this moment.

We’ve talked to our kids about how Mommy does have a sickness and it is called cancer.  My children have been very close with a dear kindergarten friend of theirs who has spent much time at St. Jude’s hospital and have stared cancer in the face and felt more love than fear. However, my children to know my diagnosis is different. Other children that they currently know in our area now in more battles with cancer, are different.

I described it to my children like snowflakes.  Everyone’s story is unique to them.  It will be fragile, but the sameness in them all is that the outcome can be beautiful.  We raise our kids and work in our house as a TEAM.  It’s not Bella’s responsibility to take care of the baby’s safety, however, we all chip in around the house and help one another because that’s what a team does.  Jason and I are the captain’s, but God is the coach.  He’s in charge, and we lead and guide the team.  We all chip in, we all help out.  Sometimes, a player feels weak, but another steps up and the team works together to balance out and it may shift next game.  So… we’re going with the team vibe for this.  Now my family growing up, my high school buddies, and my nieces and nephews all call me “Buna” (Boo-nuh).  So they are all jumping on the “Go TEAM BUNA” bandwagon.

If you can look out for my kiddos, be patient with them and my family as they try to be “mommy”, give me a little extra heads up on projects and assignments or extra snacks or things that need to be sent in, that’d be great.  They’ll need some hugs pretty quick as they watch me lose my hair quickly in the next few weeks as they’ve prepped me for and the kids know.  As I said, they plan to go fast and furious.  Dr.Stolier put my records down, held my hand and teared up to tell me, “Brace yourself.  You’re getting the blue plate special with extra helpings and the road is gonna be long and rough.  Good thing you’re tough bc you need to be tough and positive bc we are going to have to beat you up pretty good so we can get you out on the other side.”  I trust so much in God that I’m going to come out on the other side.  I’ve gotten appointments with doctors that I was told I “wouldn’t be able to get for weeks”, yet after a quick prayer, I got in in less than a day, over and over.  God is opening up some very hopeful doors.

Last, in my prayers, it sounds super weird, but as a music lover and a singer, I meditate on songs a lot. Usually they are true worship songs, but this time,  I found God sings Bob Marley just like me!  Through every biopsy, scan, mammogram, waiting room, etc.  the song in my heart and my head is “… Say don’t worry, about a thing. ‘Cuz every little thing …is gonna be alright!”   I feel a very genuine sense of peace and surrender.  God has got me and my family and so do you and I trust in you.  I can only ask for your prayers and support.  I get embarrassed to ask for anything, but when it comes to knowing my kids are ok, I’m shameless.  Please hug my kids… a lot.  And if they have questions, I ask that they continue to ask parents, grandparents, etc. But if they do ask you, please just keep us posted as to what they asked.  I am an open book.  No worries in asking me anything.  I just want my kids to be protected and be ok.  Some people can say some strange things in front of them about our “too large family”, so I can only imagine the lack of filter that my come right now.  Kids are smart and intuitive.  Again,  I have to surrender that, too.

Thank you for your prayers, and for your understanding.  God bless you all and thank you for EVERYTHING that you have done, you are doing and you will do for the entire MQP parish and school.  Y’all are some AMAZING, AMAZING people.  I pray that one day I can come and be a part of your “cool club” and teach at the school where my kids are and are so loved.

 

Thanks for your prayers and know I offer mine for you as well,

Elise Angelette

*My apologies for any typos or bad grammar here!  Please don’t let it be a reflection on any of us.  I’m just too tired to read it twice.

Now I’m off to go “KICK CANCER’S BUTT!”  … and yes, I just said “BUTT”  in a letter to my kids’ teachers because I’m just that mature. 😉

…………………………………………………………..

And there ya have it.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on this past year.  It’s been a whirlwind, and I didn’t even have time to think about it.  I wrote about it all.  I’m glad I did, because I can remember it all through these blogs.  It all feels like such a blur to me now.  I think this next year after treatment ends, I’ll reread it all and finally begin to process what the heck just happened!

Looking at moments like this, when my head was first shaved and I was about to first take that initial brave step out of my bathroom and down the steps to my kiddos to be seen by my husband and those sweet little faces…

… I am overcome by the flood of emotions as i stepped out nervously, only to be received and loved more than I’ve ever been loved in all of my life combined.

Thank you, to my village, for all of that love.

I am forever grateful for the strength you continue to give me and my family to help us all grow into the joyful warriors that we wake up to be every day.

What joyful tears I find myself in during this reflection in less than a year’s time.. and still going.

Grateful.

AND TO THE NEWLY DIAGNOSED FIGHTERS (FAMILIES OF) AND SURVIVORS OUT THERE…

“CARRY ON… WARRIORS!!!!”