LEFT TO RIGHT: T.J. Burcham, Amanda, and Amanda's brother Brian   Amanda today After finishing treatment at St. Jude’s, Amanda returned home where less than a year later, on March 15, 2008, she married her high school sweetheart, T.J. Burcham. Amanda plans to study business at Northeast Community College to prepare for opening her own portrait studio.

“Amanda, is everything OK?”

“I…” Amanda faltered. Somehow saying it out loud would make it all the more real. “I have
cancer again,” she said at last.

There was a deep silence on the other end of the line.

“I can’t believe it,” Chandra said finally, her voice soft and sad.
“How…?”

“I woke up this morning feeling like someone had put a heavy rock on my chest. It hurt to move. It turns out I have a cancerous mass on my lungs. I’m going to have to have chemo this time.”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to St. Jude’s.”

February passed quickly as Amanda settled back into St. Jude’s for a new round of treatment. Gazing out the window of her room, she stared at the bare, spindly branches of trees, the bare earth. Her head, too, was bare, and its smooth surface, devoid of the hair she’d smoothed and brushed and pulled into ponytails all her life, felt new and strange. But there was a comforting kind of communion in being laid bare at the same time as the earth around her: It was as though nature had decided to keep her company in her ordeal.

Spring stirred an excited impatience in her, however, and by the time June came, attending her high school graduation was nearly all Amanda could think about. When permission for a week’s stay at home was granted, Amanda was ecstatic.

“Amanda, how many pictures are you going to take?”

Chandra took time out from applying her lipstick to tease her friend, who was snapping away furiously on a disposable camera as she and her girlfriends donned their red caps and gowns.

Amanda replied by swiveling on her heels and aiming the camera at Chandra. Click.

“I give up!” Chandra said good-naturedly.

“OK, group picture!” Amanda commanded. Her friends gathered around her, laughing and talking. The changing room smelled of hair spray and perfume and, wafting in through the open windows, freshly mowed grass. Thank You, God, for letting me be here today, Amanda prayed.

As if reading her thoughts, Chandra gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m so glad you were able to come home for a week during treatment,” she said. “Graduation wouldn’t have been the same without you!”

Amanda smiled and advanced her camera to the next picture. “It feels great to be back.” CD

Julie Rattey is managing editor of Catholic Digest.