"Between now and dead, you've got a purpose. Don't be timid."

Before she retired as a hospice chaplain, Reverend Victoria Burdick faced her own death several times. In her 30s while in divinity school, she wrote a series of essays she called "Lunch with Heron." In one of those essays, "The Tall Ships," she recounts the breast cancer diagnosis that led her to the Festival of the Tall Ships in Europe, and her harrowing ordeal crewing on a ship with a captain and crew who were rarely sober. 

One night, exhausted after an 18-hour shift at the helm, and weak from the cancer drugs she was taking, Victoria, mother of two young girls, came face-to-face with what was now an 8-week prognosis. Her self-determined transformation empowered her to survive. The day she pulled her rigging knife on the captain--the day she caught him molesting his young daughter-- confirmed the strength growing inside her. 

Victoria is descended from seven generations of sailmakers, seafarers, and what she proudly terms "warf rats." Growing up on the water prepared her for the ordeal described in the book and movie "The Perfect Storm."  Yes, she, her father, and other members of her family's crew were on one of the ships caught in that storm. 

It comes as no surprise that when faced with the diagnosis of cancer, she sought to do battle on the deck of a ship, a place where she had once before beaten death. 

Victoria personifies courage and the determination to survive, two qualities needed by those of us caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's or other dementia.  

The "Lunch with Heron" essays are not published. Victoria Burdick graciously agreed to share one of the essays here with the hope that her experience might inspire others. You can learn more about her and her work at her  website: AuthenticCeremony.com