Cancer ransacked Andrea Caron’s body just before her 35th birthday. It stole her breasts and both ovaries and it didn’t stop there. When I met her in 2014, chemotherapy was looting her hair, eyelashes and eyebrows, too.
Still, a brave woman, she allowed me to tell her story. I watched as artist Mary Dunham (then known as Mary Schmaling-Kearns) gave her a swirling, blossoming henna crown. Mary called it a blessing. Andrea, who lives in Sweden, Maine, told me it was a gift to herself, to help “find the love and the beauty in all this mess.”
After that, I always wondered what happened to Andrea. Truthfully, I was afraid to ask. She and Mary had helped me tell a story of hope and beauty and I was afraid the truth might ruin it all.
I should have had more faith in science — and art.
In 2017, I met Andrea for a second time at Mary’s studio in Portland. Her cancer was gone. Surgeons had reconstructed her breasts and blonde hair spilled from her head. All smiles, she said her prognosis was good.
She agreed to let me tell another chapter of her story. It was even more personal. Instead of a henna crown, Andrea got a tattoo. Through my lens, I saw vines and growing leaves spread across her chest under Mary’s needle.
That temporary henna crown allowed Andrea to see the beauty of her bald head. Then, the permanent tattoos marked her body as her own, again.
“Today is a day I’ve been waiting for, to finally put something back on my body that was taken,” she said.
Andrea’s reconstructed breasts are saline-filled sacks installed under her skin. She told me they aren’t like the ones cancer took away. They still feel like foreign objects.
“With this, I just know it’s going to help me accept them a little bit better now,” she said.
Modern medical science saved Andrea’s life and put her body back together. That’s clear. But I’m convinced it’s Mary’s art which protects her spirit.
Before starting the tattoo, Mary uttered a blessing, speaking of energy and peace. She laid her hands on Andreas outstretched body. Lighting a candle, she gave Andrea stones to hold.
I don’t know anything about crystals or energy flow. I’m not sure I believe in things I can’t see. But I have faith in Mary. I’ve seen what she can do.
There’s power and grace in Mary’s hands. I watched beauty flow out of them, onto Andrea’s skin. It sank, below the surface, underneath what my eye could fathom. It made her feel better. I could see that.
I’d call that healing.
When the tattoos were finished, Andrea looked at herself in a full-length mirror.I asked her how she felt.
“I feel one-of-a-kind,” she said, laughing and hugging Mary.
