Originally written during my cancer journey, updated October 26, 2025 for Grown-Up Dreams.

After last week’s Stepping on Toes: Tango for Two, I started thinking about all the times I’ve stumbled — really stumbled. Five years ago, cancer tried to trip me, but my friends, my “Village People,” caught me mid-fall. That’s when I learned what laughing through cancer really means.

But you don’t need cancer to have your Boob Squad. Maybe life hit you in some other way — loss, burnout, heartbreak — or maybe, like me, you fall apart only after the storm has passed.

When that happens, we’ve got three choices: cry, laugh, or both. My vote? Laugh — even when you’re crying. Fake it ’til you make it.

Tell the old stories that still make you smile (and everyone’s heard a thousand times.)

And if all else fails, have a cupcake. Because while the Village People weren’t known for it, Mary Poppins could teach them a thing or two: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

It takes a village to survive chemo–especially during shedding season. Even now, five years after the fact, I still ask: will I ever be normal again?

Some questions don’t have neat answers, but old photos do. Looking at that old photo from college — me and my friends dressed as the Village People, laughing too hard to spell YMCA right — the answer is obvious. Why would I ever want to be normal? I’ve got my brothers and sisters to get me through this. My village peeps.

Back in 2020, when I was in the thick of it, I felt the love from two of them — my sorority sisters Heather and Holly.

I posted my chemo-beanie video, and Holly, teased me:

“What? No Village People hats?”

Funny, she said that — it comes with a story and a few sisters.

Heather showed up my freshman year when I was hiding in my room from an unwanted suitor. My roommate woke up to find me craning with my cheek pressed to the cold floor, trying to see if the shoes outside were his. under the door to check the shoes. They weren’t. They were hers — Heather’s — the fun girl behind the door who walked straight into my life (okay, my room). Turns out, she would’ve done the same thing in my shoes.

Sisters of the same heart. I ended up rushing, and we became sorority sisters, no doubt, and better yet, she became my big sister.

She was a Senior, but one year with Heather would make up for three years with anyone else.

She was the father in Life Is Beautiful. She could turn a concentration camp into an adventure. In college, we didn’t need an excuse to have fun.

We’d play games at frat dances. “Make the singer fall in love with you.” We’d get to the stage, paw, scream, and what have you. And, of course, he’d fall for Heather. After the gig, he’d come up to her to talk, she’d say a few words, dismiss him, and we’d go off laughing while he stood there stunned as if to say, “Wait, didn’t you love me?”

Or we’d go to her friend’s house and pull out the couch, listen to music (anything but country, which was my weird northern rule that everyone was okay with until I wouldn’t just find a station already), and watch the cars drive by.

Heather could make you forget why you had taken NyQuil, wake you up from a dead sleep, and convince you to go out instead.

When Heather graduated, I worried the fun might end. But then came Holly — with her own brand of bold. Her favorite game? Pour warm beer on a guy’s leg while he was peeing in the bushes — then run before he realized it wasn’t his doing. That was Holly: fearless, funny, and somehow the practical sister who’d say, “This is serious. One wrong move and we could be toast.”

And on an even more practical note, our dog’s named Holly.

When I found out I had cancer, Heather called — the one person who could make you laugh through cancer because she’d done it herself.

Her favorite joke, “I have cancer, now give me a cupcake.” She turned medicine and fear into sugar and frosting.

Then Holly texted, “You talked to Heather. Good call!” If Heather could make a secret handshake with cancer and blaze her way through it: I figured I could, too.

But amid the fun and games, Heather became suddenly Holly-like practical. “Every time they give you the saline before you get a weird taste in your mouth, pop an Altoid.”

So that curiously strong mint brings us back to the curiosity of The Village People. That Halloween, Heather had graduated, but the rest of us decided we needed to be something obnoxious. The Village People fit the bill. We didn’t care that the cowboy and army guy were never on stage together — we made it a reunion.

And looking back now, I realize that’s what laughter really built — not just memories, but a tribe.

If I could talk about everybody in my village who’ve brought me such joy–the photos, stories, jokes, gifts, food, offers for help, prayers, texts, emails, calls. I accidentally told a stranger “I love you” the other day. Anyone could be part of my tribe–strangers can get me, too.

It takes a village to raise a chemo patient. Those moments when I take off my silk beanie I sleep in hoping to preserve what’s left in my pickle-jar head and count how many hairs came out during the night, I should know better.

I’ve got sisters who make adventures out of anything. With a village like that, why would I ever want to be normal again?

Not everybody has a Boob Squad, but everybody needs a village — those people who show up with jokes, bad dance moves, or cupcakes when life gets heavy. Because laughing through cancer (and everything else life throws at you) isn’t about pretending everything’s fine. It’s about remembering joy and making a pact with it — to be sisters through it all, even when it hurts.

As my sister-friend Heather would say: “Now give me a cupcake already.”