Google Photos has that function called “Memories” which, out of the blue, presents you with one of your old photos. Sometimes mine make me smile (family pics), others make me cringe (bad hair days). The one that presented itself today caused me a lot of mixed emotions.

It’s of a painting I made a few years ago that I called “Hope.”

I painted it after I’d reached the 5-year mark for surviving cancer (Diffuse large B cell lymphoma, to be exact). I was feeling grateful and, finally, truly hopeful about things. One day I had an image in my mind that represented this newfound hope. It’s seen in the image above. It’s a simple, small (12″ x 12″) painting.

At first, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the painting–put it on the shelf with my other limited artistic efforts? But then it came to me: I wanted to share my hope with other cancer fighters and survivors.

I reached out to the cancer center where I’d received chemotherapy and spoke with someone there about donating the painting. I explained that I was one of their previous patients, a grateful survivor. I wanted to give them the painting, with the idea that they might put it somewhere that their patients could see it, maybe with a card explaining that it was painted and donated by someone who’d gone through what they were currently going through. Someone who was proof that they could (hopefully) survive this.

The infusion center rep agreed and we set up a time that I would drop off the painting. It was with mixed emotions that I drove to the cancer center–the place where I’d gone through so much that literally saved my life.

I went into the waiting room and up to the desk to ask for the rep, and then sat down where I had so many times before. I saw patients waiting to go back for treatment, like I used to. People who were thin and pale and wearing head wraps, like I used to. I felt incredibly bad for them and a sudden sense of panic. I was fighting the urge to run out when my name was called.

Our contact was brief. The rep was polite but seemed busy and distracted as she took the wrapped painting. She said thank you, so did I, and I left.

I followed up a few months later, and was told that while it wasn’t hung yet, they had plans to put it in the corner over the coffee maker at some point. The coffee maker?

It was then that I realized that she/they didn’t get it. When you’re a cancer patient, it’s incredibly reassuring to hear about those who have made it out the other end of the cancer journey. I’d hoped that my little painting might be able to provide that, for some, in a small way.

Let me clarify: I don’t think the cancer center owes it to me to display my painting, not at all (they did enough in saving my life, right?) And I envisioned the painting in a quiet corner, too–but certainly not the canteen area (where you’re not going to find nauseous chemo patients). It seems like they might have not known quite what to do with it, so somebody finally came up with “I know! How about over the coffee maker?”

So, it was with very mixed emotions that I looked at the photo of the painting earlier today. I wondered if the painting ever made it onto the wall over the coffee maker or was instead stowed away in a storeroom somewhere.

As I look at the image on my screen, I remember how happy and hopeful I felt when I painted it. And then I remembered that you can have photos printed on canvas.

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll have one made and put it on my own wall–my personal tribute to hope. Thanks to technology, the message of my little painting isn’t lost after all. 😊