Joy Ride

Pulling up a chair for Elizabeth Heiskell...

Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, Elizabeth Heiskell is an author, entrepreneur, and a natural host. She has a number of cookbooks about the joy of bringing people together through food, culture, and southern love. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her husband, Luke, and their family.

In creating this Substack, there are times when it feels like I need what our writers are sharing just as much as any other reader. Reading Elizabeth’s newsletter felt like receiving a handwritten note from an old friend when I desperately needed it most.

Elizabeth writes about receiving a breast cancer diagnosis and what it meant to move through fear, anger, disbelief, and ultimately, choice. Not the choice of what happened to her — but the choice of how she would walk through it. Elizabeth reminds us that everyone has something heavy they’re carrying. It may not be cancer, but it is something. Grief. Loss. Loneliness. Fear. None of us escape it. What we do get to choose — again and again — is where we place our focus. On the fear, or on the love that surrounds us. On what’s falling apart, or on what’s still holding.

We are fortunate to have people like Elizabeth who show us that even in the darkest seasons, joy can grow if we tend to it. May her words encourage you, wherever you are right now, to notice one small silver lining today — and let it guide you forward.

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Here’s Elizabeth:

Joy Ride

Four months ago, I was waiting for yoga class to start when the instructor said “hello” to me. She’s one of my favorites. I think of her as a little light bulb that glows brightly wherever she goes. She brightens this world. No one else was in the lobby, so I decided to share my news with her. “I just wanted to let you know that I have breast cancer, and I had chemo yesterday,” I said. “I’m not sure how I’ll do in class today.” I wanted her to know that if I had to leave early or walk out in the middle of a pose, it wasn’t because I didn’t like her class.

“You have breast cancer?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Congratulations on your journey,” she said, as though I’d told her I had won the lottery. If someone had a picture of my face at that very moment, I can tell you, it would have been epic. I wanted to say, “Lady, you need to quit smoking that incense you are always burning in here!” I mean, CONGRATULATIONS, I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. I was so taken aback. During class, I was pissed, getting madder by the minute, but I stayed the whole time.

Four weeks earlier, I’d been at a sports bar in Oxford, Mississippi, where I live. Ole Miss baseball season ended with the Rebels in Omaha at the College World Series, and it was an amazing game. About halfway through the game, I scratched my breast and felt a lump—a big lump. I made my friend Machelle come to the bathroom with me to feel it. I’ll never forget the look on her face. She was terrified.

Machelle met me at my gynecologist’s office the following Monday morning. We went into the room, and Julie, my doctor and a good friend, examined me. A look of deep concern came over her face. We talked about the mammogram that I was certain I’d had only several months earlier, and she went to look at the film. When she came back, she looked even more worried. “Elizabeth,” she said, “it has been two years, NOT eight months since your last mammogram.”

Then she gave me the plan: a mammogram, an ultrasound, and a biopsy.

I was hearing the words, but they were not sinking in. I couldn’t let them. Julie sent me to get bloodwork, but not before Machelle stood up, crying, and said, “Can we please hold hands and pray?” So, we all stood there holding hands in the exam room while Machelle prayed. They were both crying, and I can remember thinking, “This is pretty dramatic, Machelle!”

Test after test, my denial continued. After all, I was in the best shape of my life, and my career was flourishing. While driving to Memphis with my daughter for a big meeting—Goldbelly was interested in selling my cakes—my phone rang. It was the doctor.

“Elizabeth, we have the results of the biopsy, and you have invasive ductal carcinoma,” she said. Invasive ductal carcinoma is the most common type of breast cancer, which starts in the milk ducts and spreads to nearby tissue. She went on to explain that I was hormone receptor-negative, but she was still waiting on the results of the HER2 test. That is all I remember before I went into complete panic mode. We turned the car around.

We got home, and my husband, Luke, understood the gravity of the situation when he saw us back so soon. He knew from the look on our faces. I didn’t have to say the words “I have cancer,” but I did because I wanted to know what it felt like. I wanted to see if my brain could even let me form the sentence. Being told you have cancer is hard. Having to tell the people you love is near impossible.

I was in the process of seeking multiple opinions from specialists when I met a lady named Louise in the waiting room who also had breast cancer. We had both changed into our robes and were waiting for our mammograms. This clinic kept the robes in a warmer. They were delightful. For a few minutes, you almost felt like you were at a spa, until they put your breast in a vice grip. It doesn’t take but a minute in the mammogram machine to snap you back into reality.

When I sat down across from Louise, she said, “These robes are a silver lining, aren’t they?” I replied, “Yes,” and halfway smiled. She asked where I was from, and I said Oxford, Mississippi, but my sister-in-law lives here, so I have a place to stay nearby. Louise smiled and said, “Oh, that’s another silver lining.” It didn’t matter what my answer was to any of her questions; her response was always, “Oh, look, another silver lining!” It was like she was catching silver lining butterflies.

Honestly, it was all I could do not to say, “Louise, look around, we are in the cancer hospital, and by the way, you don’t look so good.” She was thin, extremely pale, except for the dark circles under her eyes, and she had no hair. I was angry. I didn’t want to find silver linings. I wanted to wallow in my feelings. As the days went by, Louise and her words wouldn’t leave me. Slowly, I began looking for silver linings everywhere. I was amazed to find that the more I looked for them, the more they seemed to appear. On particularly hard days, I took what I called joy rides. I would get in my car and drive to visit places that brought me joy. Maybe it was to see my favorite tree, to go to a nearby shop to sit on the beautiful lavender bench, or to stop in at the health food store to stare at the pretty birds on their lovely wallpaper.

As the days went on, I noticed that the more attention and energy I paid to silver linings, the more I found, and the more joy blossomed. Like a plant, if you want something to grow, you must tend to it—water it, care for it, and give it attention. It was all beginning to make sense to me. Wherever I put my focus, that was what grew. When I turned my focus to joy, more joyful things came my way. Conversely, if I focused on fear and darkness, more things to be fearful of appeared.

“Just a few more minutes, and the worst will be over,” were the words I heard from Diane, who was also receiving her cold cap treatment. I wanted my hair for my daughter’s debutante ball. I wanted my hair for an upcoming wedding in Paris. I wanted my hair, even if only half of it was left. So, I focused on the joy of Paris. I focused on my beautiful daughter and all the joy she had brought me. I didn’t give up when the freezing-cold cap became unbearable. I stuck it out for a few more minutes, focusing on joy, and then sharp pain gave way to numbness. Diane was right. Though the cap felt cold and tight, it was endurable.

Around that time, the nurse came in with the chemotherapy machine. My anxiety and fear started to well up again, with panic growing in my gut. I looked at my formidable husband, Luke, sitting in a tiny chair, tears in his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. I knew all he wanted to do was take it all away from me. He looked so helpless, and I don’t think I have ever been so in love in 27 years of marriage. Instead of focusing on the terror welling up inside me, I chose to feed the joy I found in that moment. I had my precious Luke with me. I had warm clothes. I had a plan. I had amazing doctors. And just like that, silver linings grew. When I called my daughters after my treatment, I explained that we wouldn’t feed the fear. We would only feed the joy. You see, those silver linings grew into full cloth—a cloth that I could wrap myself in.

I was elated when the day was behind me. It’s amazing how our minds can run wild with irrational fear. Don’t get me wrong, the day had been hard—filled with excruciating pain and lots of tears—but the reality was nothing compared to what I had feared it would be.

And now I finally understand what my sweet yoga teacher meant when she said “congratulations.” Life serves up countless lessons, even during the darkest of times. What I learned from overcoming fear has been a gift for which I am eternally grateful.

To be clear, everyone has their “cancer.” Maybe it’s grief, addiction, chronic illness, divorce, or loneliness. We all will carry something heavy. You don’t get to choose what your “cancer” is, but you damn sure get to choose how you experience the journey through it.

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