This story started out about a football player who was close to home and who's Mom texted him to see if he wanted to eat cake for his upcoming birthday. It's a much more complicated and beautiful story about his Mom who has survived three different types of cancer, who is an Anglican priest who has a wife and the wonderful son who loves and supports her.

Record-setting Cornish celebrates mother’s health

In honour of her son’s upcoming 29th birthday, Margaret Cornish threw a party Thursday night in downtown Vancouver.

“I just texted Jonathan, because I wanted to see if he would eat cake,” Margaret was saying earlier this week. “I don’t know if football players eat cake the night before a game.

“He likes chocolate cake.”

Jon Cornish has no shortage of reasons to celebrate as the starting tailback for the playoff-bound Calgary Stampeders.

The New Westminster, B.C. tailback has already shattered his own record for most rushing yards by a Canadian in a single-season (1,799 and counting.) He needs just 98 yards in Friday’s season-finale against the B.C. Lions to break the franchise record of 1,896 set by Willie Burden back in 1975.

But off the field, Jon experienced a victory of a much greater magnitude this season far removed from the glare of the television cameras.

“My mom,” he says “is cancer free.”

Back in the summer, Margaret — an Anglican priest in Richmond, B.C.- travelled to Calgary to break the news of the diagnosis to her son.

Cancer is nothing new in the Cornish family. Margaret, 60, successfully battled lymphoma while Jon was attending university in Kansas. Three years ago, she fought melanoma ... and won.

Then came the breast cancer diagnosis for a woman who raised five children on a music teacher’s salary before pursuing her calling of joining the ministry.

“I was the last person in my family to know, as usual, with most of these revelations that my mom drops on me,” Jon says. “But I didn’t worry.

“She always taught me to have a very positive perspective and never let things get to me.”

Those words might seem like mere platitudes, but Margaret Cornish simply refuses to dwell on worst-case scenarios.

“I didn’t know a lot about breast cancer when I was faced with my news,” she says. “But from my own experience in British Columbia, the care was fast and really phenomenal.

“If I could send a message to breast cancer patients — and I know, how can you say don’t be alarmed at the news — but the recovery rate is so good now. We know so much we didn’t know before.”

After talking over the options with her family, Margaret opted to undergo a double mastectomy as opposed to simply having the malignant tissue removed through a lumpectomy.

Her son applauded the move.

“People become attached to their body parts and what not,” he says. “But when it’s between life and death, there’s no choice. Just get the mastectomy and move on with your life.”

No matter the obstacle, Jon subscribes to theory of dealing with reality and then moving on with things.

As a non-import running back breaking into the CFL in 2007, Jon quickly figured out how dismal his chances looked earning a starting job at a so-called skill position normally reserved for Americans.

With Sean Millington and Jesse Lumsden the major exceptions, conventional wisdom suggested a Canadian back accept life as a backup and contributor on special-teams.

“When I had opportunities, I took advantage of them,” he says. “But I always had to live with that idea that I couldn’t be a starter in this league.

“So I just tried to change that idea. Like, why not just be so good, that it doesn’t matter where you’re from? That’s what I realized I had to be. Being Canadian actually wasn’t helpful, and I imagined it being the exact opposite when I came up here.”

Labels — Canadian, American, import, non-import — don’t sit well with Jon in any area of his life.

At the 2012 CFL Player Awards, Jon generated national headlines by thanking his two moms — Margaret and her wife Andrea — for their love and support.

“I still don’t really think of my mom as gay,” says Jon, whose father died when he was in college. “Yeah, she’s in love with a woman. But for me, I’ve always had very, very liberal beliefs about stuff related to that. Because my sister, she had a girlfriend when I was young.”

His sister is now married to a man, and she’s a mom.

“To me, it’s always been you love who you love,” Jon says. “For me, it’s always been simple. I think people complicate by adding titles and stuff like that.”

Looking back, Jon sees nothing special in his public revelation at Grey Cup about his mom’s private life.

And neither does Margaret.

“I wouldn’t have expected anything different,” she says. “Andrea is my wife. For him to treat it as anything other than normal, I would have been surprised.

“I have some small influence just being a clergy person in a community. It gives me a bit of a platform to speak on issues, but nothing like the platform my son has now.

“I’m glad he’s using his sphere of influence, because his sphere of concern is very large. I’m glad he is open about our family. He cares about our family. He’s a very lovely person to have as a son.”

The feeling is mutual.

“She’s basically been a rock for me,” says the CFL’s leading rusher. “My mom is a very strong person.

“I think I might have got a little bit of that from her.”

http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/Rec ... story.html

I wish the Cornish family continuing luck in beating the odds ~ they sound like a terrific family who recognize, accept, and live a simple truth: "... you love who you love" ~ personally, I will never understand why such a simple truth is so difficult to comprehend for so many ~

I deeply believe that a "positive attitude" is exceptionally important and one of our strongest personal weapons against things we cannot control ~ but we have to really believe, not just mouth the words during tough times ~

Sooz

Oh, sooz......what a great reminder to me in my current situation, thanks. Hopefully, when I get better sleep, I can find my positive attitude again. I think I lost it in the office phone somewhere.

You'll find it. I've also found that mad is more powerful than sad to get you through crises, but at the end of the crisis you've got to let the anger go. It takes way to much energy we need for important things.

This family seems very mentally healthy. My dear friend Pete said those very words "... you love who you love" when he explained to me that he loved a man after being engaged to a woman. It's the person and not the gender.