Coronavirus robbed this Boise family of milestones. They’ve survived worse.

Samantha Harrison wasn’t just looking forward to the beaches of Hawaii.

She was looking forward to celebrating life, she said, with an “amazing husband.”

Sam and Brian Harrison were scheduled to fly out of Boise on April 1. Six weeks after her second breast reconstruction surgery. Three months after her total hysterectomy. One year to the day after her final round of chemotherapy. “It was my one-year anniversary of kicking cancer’s butt,” explained Sam, 40.

Then the coronavirus and COVID-19 disease arrived. The couple’s vacation, booked to coincide with a friend’s Hawaiian wedding, was derailed. Like so many other Idaho families, the Harrisons were forced to put their lives on hold.

And it didn’t stop there.

An enthusiastic Idaho Steelheads fan, Sam was chosen by St. Luke’s Health System to drop a ceremonial hockey puck March 20 at the Pink in the Rink game. The next day, the Harrisons’ 15-year-old son, Payton, was slated to leave for a long-planned spring break trip to France with students and teachers.

“Needless to say,” said Brian, 44, “once the dominoes started falling, everything was off the table.”

No Steelheads. No France. No Hawaii.

And perhaps no family better suited to cope.

After a year and a half of having your world turned upside down by cancer, your perspective changes, Brian said.

Trips abandoned or postponed because of the pandemic? These are “unfortunate inconveniences,” he explained.

“I obviously have no room to complain,” Sam said. “The whole world is in this together.”

Still, she would have appreciated Hawaii. After “20 rounds of poison” pumped through her body. After losing the hair. After gaining the weight. After the mental and physical trauma of a double mastectomy. After developing foot pains that still require weekly physical therapy.

And knowing that she still has a third breast reconstruction surgery scheduled this fall.

Sam, whose breast cancer was diagnosed in October 2018, deserved a little sand and sunshine.

“You have to understand — the beach is my happy place,” she said. “Warm sun and the ocean sounds are my heaven. It was humpback whale season. If I could have a pet humpback, I would own one!”

Actually, she sounded almost as disappointed about the puck drop. Around 50 friends and supporters had bought Steelheads tickets to watch her celebrate her victory. “I was really excited about it,” she said. “That was probably, in some respects, a bigger bummer than Hawaii, because I may not get the opportunity to do that again.

“The things that are the hardest are the things that we can’t make up. The dropping the puck. Or performances that kids have practiced for, for months and months and months.”

Ah, yes: Did we mention the canceled school play that the Harrisons’ 10-year-old daughter, Chloe, sacrificed so many recesses to rehearse for?

When all is said and done, the Harrisons are a fortunate family, they figure. Payton is planning to reschedule his trip abroad in 2021. Brian has a good job at HP. Sam is looking forward to seeing her “work family” at the Buffalo Club, where she’s a cocktail waitress, after the pandemic ends.

“I will still gladly pick up my bucket of life and keep on trucking before I pick up somebody else’s,” Sam said. “Mine still looks pretty.”

Throughout the battle with cancer, Sam shared her experiences openly on Facebook, picking up about 2,000 new friends, she said.

“There are so many blessings that came from cancer,” Sam added. “The people I have met.”

Because her immune system was compromised during chemo, the Harrisons were already accustomed to social distancing, too.

“Everything that’s going on in the world right now, we’ve been practicing for two years,” she said. “I was really excited to get back to real life and seeing people and hugging.”

That will have to wait a little longer.

But, Brian said, “there is a bright side.”

“The Hawaii trip will happen, eventually,” he said. “As I told a friend recently, the islands will still be there ... . And thankfully, so will she.”

A lost spring

Dream vacations, weddings, births, half-marathons, graduations, proms, athletic seasons. These are just a few of the events, some of them once-in-a-lifetime, that people have anticipated, worked toward and trained for — and now many are missing during the coronavirus pandemic. We want to tell your stories to reflect one of the ways our lives have been altered in recent weeks, and how people are coping with the disruption.

If you’d be willing to share, please let us know. You can contact Idaho Statesman reporters via email at newsroom@idahostatesman.com.

This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 4:00 AM.