If you have been a reader of this blog, you will have noticed from time to time that I will occasionally send “shout outs” to people around me who are helping to ease the burdens of this cancer journey.

You have read about my son Josh, the nature wanderer, who bonds more deeply with me when we’re meandering in Manitoba’s wilderness. Then there is my daughter, Marissa.

Her heritage comes from three generations of strong women on both sides of her family. With this feminine strength also comes a healthy dose of “smarts,” non-conformity, whimsy, and creativity.

Marissa has her father’s temperament, his sense of humor, and shares his love of many genres of music. They have been known to scurry to see who will be victorious in getting to the daily newspaper’s crossword puzzle first.

Marissa is also like her mother in many ways. She has my bright, expressive eyes that look at you and instantly melt your heart. She has my smile. She’s inherited the same curvature in her spine as I have (scoliosis). Sadly, she now also has a genetic predisposition to breast cancer because of my diagnosis.

Like her mom, Marissa has chosen a creative career path, involving the world of words. Since she was three, she’s has had a lifelong love affair with words. In our family, she has affectionately been called “the word nerd.”

As a child, Marissa devoured books. She would read up to six simultaneously at any given time, which she parked in various rooms around our house. She read pre-schooler’s books by age three. By grade one, she was reading my childhood favorites—Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries, which I read in fourth grade.

Marissa’s turn of a phrase earned her writing kudos from her elementary school years through to university. Her love of words led her to study Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications and Interdisciplinary Linguistics, which she is now applies to her work daily.

Like many other moms and daughters, Marissa and I naturally bond around food. We enjoy eating at ethnic restaurants off the beaten track. We can spend hours scouring new recipes to try, and then will go out to a supermarket, farmer’s market or an organic grocery store to buy the supplies to test the recipe. There’s no telling what our creative minds will find interesting to experiment with in the kitchen during these jaunts, or what we’ll come home with to sample.

Marissa is always up for a culinary challenge. Food is a passion of hers, as well as an area of potential study interest. She hasn’t ruled out returning to school to earn a second degree in Food Science, possibly combining it with writing to become a food writer or a food stylist.

She truly is a wonderful cook. But here is the scary part… a recipe is only the beginning to a kitchen masterpiece when Marissa is cooking.

Our family will sit down to a meal she’s prepared, and inevitably someone will ask her where she got the recipe. “Well, I took it off the Internet from one of my favorite sites, tweaked it, and added a few things.” The “added a few things” is so familiar; it’s how I cook! Her new groom Bryan is a lucky man, who also shares her love of spending time in the kitchen.

A bonus with being sick this past few months, is that Marissa comes home eagerly wanting to cook for me. It’s always a treat to let her loose in the kitchen because the meals that result from her culinary creativity are always great.

I am so proud of this pretty young woman in my life. I look into her eyes and she gives me the Strength, Courage, and Determination I need to continue my fight against cancer.