2 years ago today.

Two years ago today I finished treatment for cancer.

Two years ago today I also celebrated my son's first birthday.

Today, I am 2 years out of treatment and my son is running around like a typical 3 year old boy excitedly waiting for presents and Santa.

Life stops for no one. There are no breaks along the way and the train of life keeps going whether we continue to sit on the train or get off at some stop.

2 years is all it took to take me from viewing cancer as a gift I didn't need to a gift I'm so happy to have received.

Having been gifted with cancer enables me to sit up late at night typing comfort to someone I've never met who is currently going through her own fight with cancer.

Her gift of cancer makes her reach out to people without faces. It makes her reach out to someone of a different culture to find hope in a situation she hasn't found hope in thus far.

The fear of her gift gives her many sleepless nights. It gives her twists in her stomach which medicine cannot cure.

Fear of the unknown is a brutal feeling to have in the pit of your gut. It does not go away nor does it let up for even minutes at a time. It consumes you while you sleep and it sits deep in your brain surfacing as nightmares when you try and sleep.

I have seen people die from cancer. I have also seen people living with having had cancer.

The end of treatment does not bring an end to the gift we have received.

No, it is only the beginning.

Survivors sometimes do not realize the strength and courage that they have to get up in the morning and take the 'cancer' and just put it on your back like a baby in a papoose.

In the blink of an eye and with the stealth of a cat, the cancer we carried around starts to empower us and make us become better people.

We laugh more at life's endearing moments.

We cry more at life's tragedies and we hug more the people who carried us when we couldn't do it ourselves.

We band together and reach out to those still carrying the baby around that cannot see for themselves yet what a great gift they have received, if they only look below the surface.

I'd often wondered shortly after diagnosis what I did to deserve cancer. What did I do in my life to have to endure countless chemo and radiation sessions? Who did I wrong to get it given back to me 10 fold?

I remember feeling like I was on a ship circling and circling around a hurricane slowly sinking deeper and deeper in the sea.

Today, I cannot feel more blessed for having survivied cancer.

I feel humbled with the amount of people coming to search ME out to give them answers.

I feel humbled by people without faces looking for a virual shoulder to cry on cause they haven't ridden the cancer train long enough yet to see it for what it really is.

Cancer is a gift that shows us there is such love and compassion in people.

It shows us how precious life really is.

I sit now ready for Santa to come to my home and my heart and bless me and my family at this wonderful time of year.

I will take my son and go visit the snow and we'll build snow-angels and I'll hug him so tightly that he'll almost stop breathing.

I will then come home and have a scrumptuous dinner with family and friends, some of whom I will be meeting for the first time at Christmas after helping them via email with their own cancer struggles.

Santa will be getting cookies and milk tenderly placed on a plate and I'll also give him a message saying 'Thanks' for giving me the gift of cancer 2 short years ago.

So far, its the best present I think I've ever received.