Lightheart: A Symbol of Hope and Resilience

What is this pin?

You have been told you have cancer. So, you are now part of select group of people, those living life after a diagnosis of cancer. It’s a big group. You are not alone. Cancer can be beaten, and it can be survived. What’s frightening is that you wonder if you might not survive. If you stop and think about it ultimately all humans don’t survive, and none of us knows when our own time will run out. But right now your life seems to crumble before your eyes, you feel that you are on the way out, who can you turn to? Where do you find hope?

What is this pin?

It’s a way to find help and to help others. It is a reminder that life is just as full of promise, love and life as ever. It’s proof that you are alive. Not anything else but alive! And it’s proof cancer can be survived, against all odds!

Cancer survivors can help you and the members of your family. They are all around you, but how do you find them? The LIGHTHEART pin gives you a quick place to turn to, and also helps you to cope by quietly reminding you are not alone and

you are alive.

The inner heart is your own love for yourself. This inner love, going out to the world around you, gives you the courage and the strength to live and enjoy each new day to the fullest. You are a wonderful person, with so much to share, seize the moment! The center of the pin contains the strings of a musical instrument. The strings are the sounds of laughter, music and life around you. Laughter and music give you a constant boost and make your life so much more pleasant even when times seem darkest. Don’t forget the music that has always been important to you, now, more than ever it can help you. Laughter does dispel the dark. The sounds of life around you remind you that you are alive and the world is quite a wonderful place. This pin is to remind you that you are alive. Wearing the pin celebrates the song of life, the love from, and of, your surroundings and the richness of each day of your life. When you get up in the morning or catch a glimpse of the pin in the mirror, remember you are alive and living in the rainbow of life, and the song of the world around you.

What does the pin mean?

The black bar at the far left of the pin represents the day you found out you have cancer. The next dark grey bar represents the day after you are told, not as bad as the day before. The lighter grey bar represents the days after the first few days, when you can all too easily slip into a world of pale grey resignation. Just next to the grey is a rainbow, full of colour, and happiness, and promise, and light.

The rainbow represents the many wonderful facets of your life. Your life is important to you, your family, your job and your community. There is so much to do, and so much you can do. Things to do for yourself, for your family, for your community. You are the rainbow and the rainbow is you. Leave the grey behind. Live and enjoy the colour of the world around you.

The outer heart shape is your family, your friends, and your community, who love you and are there to help you. Remember them, they are all around you, just as they have been every other day of your life. Don’t shut them out. This is the love from outside coming into you! 

The inner heart is your own love for yourself. This inner love, going out to the world around you, gives you the courage and the strength to live and enjoy each new day to the fullest. You are a wonderful person, with so much to share. Seize the moment!

The centre of the pin contains the strings of a musical instrument. The strings are the sounds of laughter, music and life around you. Laughter and music give you a constant boost and make your life so much more pleasant, even when times seem darkest. Don’t forget the music that has always been important to you; now, more than ever, it can help you. Laughter does dispel the dark. The sounds of life around you remind you that you are alive and the world is quite a wonderful place.

The pin is a reminder that you are alive. Wearing the pin celebrates the song of life, the love from and of your surroundings, and the richness of each day of your life. When you get up in the morning or catch a glimpse of the pin in the mirror, remember you are alive and living in the rainbow of life, with the song of the world around you.

The second reason for the pin is to quietly, discreetly, let anyone who might need a friend know that you have been there, stared the beast in the eye, and laughed, and that you are ready to talk or lend a hand. Survivors can help you come to terms with your situation, give you tremendous hope, and a sense of perspective.

The third reason is to build a gentle awareness that a very large number of people are surviving and beating cancer everywhere, every day. They live, love, work and play, just like everyone else, but may be a bit more aware of how lucky they are to be alive.

Every day your pin is out there, it is giving hope to someone, bringing a quiet smile to you or to someone else, and putting another little rainbow full of light and music into the world. Just the sight of the pin can give another person in your situation a light heart and the hope to smile again.

How did this pin come to be?

The pin was the idea of a woman, let’s call her Anne. She is real, and she was a cancer survivor. When she was 46, with a family of four children, aged 6 to 16, she was told she had breast cancer.  She had surgery and returned home to her family. Two years later, she found out the cancer had spread, and her family was told she did not have long to live. She had lost a great deal of weight and was very ill indeed. Well, Anne turned 72 years old, and her once young family were all grown up with children of their own (For a minute, you thought this was going to be a really tragic story, didn’t you? Life is never that simple).

Anne went through several rounds of treatment and felt pretty rotten for what seemed like too long a time. She took control of her life, exercised and ate well. Her family rallied around her, and she kept smiling and laughing. She decided she was going to live and set about doing it. She went through a divorce, returned to college, learned a new set of skills, graduated, entered a new career and retired as a valued member of a team at a major scientific research institute. Many people were sad to think of losing Anne. Strangely enough, some of those people have long since passed on. Life is never predictable!

Anne thought there needed to be a survivor’s pin to be given to cancer survivors to wear with pride and determination. A pin to bring the joys of life into sharp focus. A pin to show others in need that you are there and open to sharing your experiences and giving support. Such a pin needed to be given away freely to survivors.

Her idea was for this to be a survivor’s pin, only for those who have actually had cancer. There’s no other way to get this pin. It’s not for supporters, nor to raise money, nor for anything or anyone else. No one can buy the pin. This pin is personal. It is a pin for those who are beating cancer every day of their lives. It is always up to you if you want to wear the pin. It is meant to be a discreet way of finding others who share your situation. It is not to be publicized, since no one but cancer patients needs to know.

Enjoy the moment, you are alive right now, and tomorrow, and probably the day after that. Today can be wonderful, and tomorrow too. Beyond that, who really knows what the future holds?

Is your diagnosis a reminder that you are alive, and of how much there is in life? A call to honour the life you have lived up till now, and the life that is still to be lived. Perhaps this diagnosis is just a reminder to cherish the moments ahead. Perhaps by making the most of every moment, every aspect of your body joins the call to win!

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