First year, second, third… Five years have passed since the day I was told I had breast cancer. I wasn’t the one counting the years. My parents were. Every single day. Every single minute. I had no reason to count. Just as you don’t count your steps when you walk—you simply move forward.

The phone rang. I answered.
“Clelia, you have breast cancer. Come back to Athens.”
I hung up. I put on music and danced. Not to chase away fear, not to ward off something dark. There was nothing to ward off.

Now that they had found the tumor, I knew I could get rid of it—and that’s exactly what happened. I didn’t cry, I didn’t panic, I didn’t collapse. Not because I’m not human, but because I wasn’t alone. And because I knew I wasn’t the only one.

I was 38 years old. So what? No one can steal your dreams unless you let them. The tumor was small. And I was bigger than it. I had advantages, and I had the clarity to see them. It was luck that I had something treatable, luck that I had a family, people by my side, my partner, my doctor. Luck that something happened to me that happens to millions of women and men around the world—and that can be defeated.

The word didn’t scare me. It activated me and set me in motion. Just before I went into surgery, the anesthesiologist looked at me and said, “You are actually doing very well.” I was—and I knew it.

There was no room for sadness in what happened to me. There was room for pure gratitude. I cried tears of joy because life—even like this—continued to give me joy. And it’s beautiful to cry, to laugh, to be afraid, to be sad, to feel happy, to ask for help.
Fear is not weakness. Weakness is freezing and watching your life pass by.

It’s beautiful to live. Life includes illness too: cancer, coronavirus. Clelia. Three words that start with the letter C. Cancer came in order to leave. Coronavirus touched me and passed. And I, somewhere in between, learned to stand upright. Not because I never fell, but because I learned how to get back up.

“Doctor, I want to tell you something, and I hope you won’t misunderstand me. I love you.”
He came close to me outside the operating room, held my hand, and said, “Let’s get rid of it.”

Five years of treatments. Tests every three months. Medical appointments that entered my life and then left again. Treatments often accompanied by a small, sweet indulgence with my mother: our favorite chocolate truffle.

And through all of this, there was life. There was laughter, celebrations, work, obligations, family, tension, tears. Because life is not a single image—it’s many. And they change.

Somewhere along the way, Hermes entered my life. Or rather, he found me on the street. A dog who knew nothing about diagnoses, tests, or fears. He only knew how to be present. How to love unconditionally. And he taught me what selfless love means.

Hermes and Clelia

Now I know better how to hold on tightly, to look ahead, to make plans, to cry without shame, to hold on to gratitude. Because I was never afraid of words that start with C: kindness, heart, understanding, holding hands, closeness, every day.
I don’t let anything take away my right to live, and I never said, “Why me?”
I said, “Luckily me—because I know how to laugh.”

Photo: iStock