“Peace begins when expectation ends.”  — Sri Chinmoy

One of my dear friends has this as part of her email signature. I believe this to be mostly true.

I find I have a lot of expectations about things that may be unreasonable. I have an expectation that the holidays will be a fun time. Well, they are except that a series of unfortunate incidents have occurred over the years that have drawn a veil over Thanksgiving and Christmas, such as my parents falling ill.

I expect to get good grades in school. Yes, until my professor gives me and my classmates a particularly hard final exam and I don’t do as well as I’d like.

I expect that everyone will like me because I try to be a “nice person.”

Oooh. That’s not always the way it goes. Nice is a relative term and what’s nice for one person may not be nice for another. It’s all about perspective.

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Every so often, you meet a person who truly inspires you in how they approach life, their attitude about dealing with a chronic illness, and who influenced them to be the best person they can be.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Hillary Turk, a woman who has been battling two types of lung cancer since 2008.

Hillary Turk

Hillary works as a therapist in private practice in Farmington Hills and has been treated at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, my employer, for the duration of her illness.

Hillary and I spoke about a lot of things during our interview – her illness and her treatments; her son, Ian; her life and her family; and how her maternal grandmother was a role model for her.

Hillary is the type of person with whom it’s easy to build a fast and warm rapport. At the age of 65, she’s seems (at least for me) to be at the quintessential grandmotherly age – someone who is different from a mother and in some ways better – someone very wise, warm and accepting.

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