Pam and I meet 8 years ago April, at a “Look Good, Feel Better” class. This is a class for cancer patients to learn to apply makeup, to the ever changing landscape that you once called your face. The barren area that once held your eyebrows would be a focal point for this program. Each attendee, around 7 in all, was provided with a bag of makeup from many well known companies. The room was sort of quiet, mostly felt somber. And, as the instructor talks about stenciling on the missing eyebrows… This person across from me, comments on my success and calls me out as a “professional”… By which I say ” you calling me a prostitute?”
After the program ended, Pam and I were talking while walking out… Comparing treatment plans and cancer experiences, both of us still receiving chemotherapy. I made the comment, just a footnote really to everything that you go through, but that I had never eaten so many pancakes in my life… At which Pam gives me the Elaine shove (*Seinfeld), you know, both hands out against someone’s chest, and a shove outwards a bit. I had made a comment that she connected with and experienced also.
Pancakes, the dreamy little stack of soft, sweet, crispy, and flavorful food that made so many of my yucky days better. It was the perfect food for the most imperfect moment in my life. AND someone knew exactly what I was talking about. A friendship was born in that moment, we have shared pancakes and friendship ever since.