A Grace in Motion Reflection 9/16/26
I wanted zero.
That sounds simple enough.
Today I received another circulating tumor DNA result. The number was 0.07.
It’s low. I know that. My nursing brain understands what the test can tell me and, just as importantly, what it can’t. I know one result doesn’t tell me where this story is going.
But none of that changed the first thing I felt when I saw the word positive.
I wanted zero.
Sometimes when someone is hurting, we instinctively reach for the encouraging part.
But it’s so low.
That’s good news.
You’re already treating it.
You’re going to get through this.
Those words can come from genuine love.
But sometimes the person sitting across from you doesn’t need you to make the number feel better.
Sometimes they need you to understand what they were hoping the number would be.
“I know. You wanted zero.”
That’s different.
Because underneath that decimal was something much bigger than a laboratory result.
I wanted permission to believe I could finally put this behind me.
I’ve already had the surgery. I’ve already done the treatments. I’ve gotten sick, gotten better, gotten knocked down again and gotten back up. There are days now when I feel good—really good—and cancer isn’t the first thing I think about.
I get to just be me.
Then a result appears on a screen and reminds me that this is still part of my story.
And today I had to grieve that.
Not because 0.07 tells me what’s going to happen tomorrow. It doesn’t.
Not because I’ve suddenly received some terrible prognosis. I haven’t.
I grieved because I wanted zero.
And somewhere in that disappointment, I realized something else.
We spend so much of our lives trying to secure a future that was never secure in the first place.
Cancer just took away my ability to pretend otherwise.
That’s uncomfortable.
My story happens to be cancer. Someone else’s story may have a different diagnosis. A chronic illness. A loss. A relationship that changed. A body that doesn’t work the way it once did. A dream that didn’t happen. A future that suddenly looks different from the one they had planned.
The details aren’t the same.
The grief doesn’t need to be compared.
And neither does the desired outcome.
We all have our own version of zero—the answer we desperately wanted and didn’t get.
I’ve also noticed something uncertainty can make me do.
It can make me coast.
I’ll do that when I feel better.
I’ll finish the book when things settle down.
I’ll take the trip when I know more.
I’ll let someone get close when I know what my future looks like.
But uncertainty can push the opposite direction too.
It can make me race.
Finish everything.
Don’t waste a minute.
Get the book done.
Write the songs.
Make every day count.
Fear can disguise itself as productivity.
And neither one is where I want to live.
I don’t want to coast because I’m afraid of tomorrow. And I don’t want to race because I’m afraid there won’t be enough tomorrows.
I want to live today.
And that includes rest.
I’m learning that resting and coasting are not the same thing.
There are days when chemotherapy wins and I sleep. Days when the book doesn’t get touched. Days when I don’t play the piano. Days when my body says, Not today.
That isn’t wasting my life.
Rest serves life.
Sometimes living looks like going.
Sometimes living looks like sleeping.
Sometimes living looks like making something beautiful.
And sometimes living means admitting, This hurts today, without immediately turning the hurt into a lesson.
Last week I wrote “More Happy Tears Than Sad.”
Today, the tears were sad.
And I recognized the difference.
There wasn’t a big smile underneath them. There wasn’t that strange mixture of gratitude and joy that sometimes comes with happy tears. These were simply sad tears because I had hoped for a different answer.
And that’s okay.
More happy tears than sad never meant no sad tears.
Some days I need the sad ones too. I don’t have to push them away, rush through them, or turn them into gratitude before they’re ready.
Sometimes tears simply say:
This mattered to me.
I hoped for something different.
And today I’m grieving the answer I wanted.
There was another place my mind went today.
Love.
I caught myself deciding that maybe someone shouldn’t choose me because my future carries uncertainty. Maybe loving me would ask too much. Maybe it would be kinder to make that decision for them.
And then I realized:
I almost chose for someone else before they ever got to choose.
I called it protecting them.
Maybe sometimes it was protecting me, too.
The right person is allowed to know the truth about my life and make their own decision about whether they want to stand in it with me.
I don’t have to promise someone enough tomorrows before I’m worthy of being loved today.
Because they can’t promise me theirs either.
None of us were ever promised certainty in the first place.
Most of us just get to pretend we have it.
Cancer made pretending harder for me.
Maybe that’s not entirely a curse.
So tonight I’m not going to make 0.07 bigger than it is.
I’m also not going to pretend I didn’t want it to be zero.
I’ll let myself grieve the answer I wanted.
I’ll pray.
I’ll use my imagination goggles—not to imagine the result away, but to see beyond one word on one screen.
I’ll pick up my courage shield.
I’ll rest when my body needs rest.
And when it’s time, I’ll take another step.
One spot. One step.
Yesterday there wasn’t a song in me.
Today there was one.
I’m learning not every song needs to be chased, and not every quiet day needs to be filled. But some songs aren’t meant to wait. Sometimes something happens and I know I need to catch it while I’m still standing inside the moment—not because I’m racing, but because this is how I process, how I make meaning, and sometimes how I find my way forward.
Today that song was “I Wanted Zero.”
I’m not coasting.
I’m not racing.
I’m living in the life that’s actually here.
And maybe that’s what courage looks like tonight.
Not pretending I’m certain.
Moving without certainty.
love,
Donna
Grace in Motion
https://suno.com/s/eMQggi7AKedxOC6b
Listen to “I Wanted Zero”
This song was written from this reflection today.
The official release is making its way to Spotify and other streaming platforms soon. In the meantime, you can listen to the original Suno version here.
