When you get it all...

Much like Rick and I, the photo is showing its age.  I venture to say its nearly 25 years old.  Its grainy, my eyes are red, its taken from far away, and we are sporting the epitome of 80's style.  Big hair, skinny ties, and I'm fairly certain we danced the night away to 80's music.  We were dating?  I struggle to remember our relationship status.  My mother found the photos while cleaning out some old boxes from the basement.  

Its perfect timing.

Superman is whisking me away- for two days- to an Eddie Money concert!  Our hair is more "tame" (read "nonexistent" for one of us, and my heels won't be nearly as tall.   In a lot of ways its hard to remember myself as that young and single.  I even had a red sports car about the color of my dress... and yet, if you could have looked inside my heart, everything I have today is what I longed for back then.  

So my excitement for the next two days is big, I mean huge!  I can't wait to re-live a bit of the past.  The car has become a Suburban used to haul the kids and all their hockey gear.  We've aged.  And we've hit a few speed bumps along the way.   But the best part?  In the end, that girl above, gets the guy and he gives her the world, over and over again. 

Be back in a couple of days! 

Closer to...

Colton received his bible at church on Wednesday evening.  He and I attended a class last Saturday that introduced him to his bible and showed him how to use it.  He loved looking up passages and could already answer some of the instructors questions.  

He was beaming Wednesday night.  Rick and I placed the book in his hands in front of the congregation, and he sat thumbing through it all through the sermon.  His curiosity is piqued.  He sang, and prayed and basked in the glow of the sanctuary as he sat snuggled in between Rick and I.  

We arrived home from church already past the boys' bedtime.  Nolan of course, is starving, after eating a big meal at church.  He uses a less than desirable word to convey he isn't pleased when I tell him its bed time.  

But before I can respond, its Colton who quickly speaks up, "Nolan, you just took one step away from God."  I don't know that Nolan got the lesson, but I sure saw that Colton is getting the lesson.  

We saw the sun going down at the start of the church service and Rick quickly drove me over to the field of corn stalks and took this photo for me.  "Closer" to God was running through my head as I drank in the night air, the serene field, the hazy ball of fire slipping below the horizon.  

...stretching myself...

Prayer for a Normal Day

Normal day,

let me be aware of the treasure you are.

Let me learn from you, love you,

bless you before you depart.

Let me not pass by in quest

of some rare and perfect tomorrow.

Let me hold you while I may,

for it may not always be so.

One day I shall dig my nails into the earth,

or bury my face in the pillow,

or stretch myself taut,

or raise my hands to the sky and want,

more than all the world, your return.

Mary Jean Iron

Like the leaves dropping en masse from the trees in the yard, I feel bits of myself slipping away.  Its like when your skin starts to shed its summer tan and it sloughs off in grayish-brown sheets in the shower like a snake molting its skin.  

But what I am shedding isn't something seen from the outside.  I feel it more than I can show it.  

Each chemo week I have to answer a survey about how treatment with TDM1 affects my life.  I've always been in the "not at all" category when it comes to some of the side effects.  Recently, I became a sometimes.  Or on the flip side, in other categories I am an "always," kind of gal.  And lately, I have to admit I'm a little more "not always" even here.  I finish the questionnaire and see that I am no longer a perfect "zero," and have moved into a whole new category.  They've warned me this will happen.  Long term chemo stores up in your body and the effects begin to linger, longer. 

Fatigue has been nagging me.  My energy never really catches up to all that I want and/or need to get done in a day.  Slowly, I see the cracks deepen into fissures that feel like a bottomless pit. I lie down for a nap, and get up feeling just as tired as when I first lay down.   

I walk blocks instead of miles.

My puppy is too heavy for me to lift anymore, and when he pulls on his leash, pain sears through my back. 

I gave myself a "gitz" pep talk the other day before I even put my feet on the floor. 

And so I wonder... maybe I am meant to slow down?  To spend my energy more thriftily.  To shift my focus, to what I can do, instead of what I can't do?  To empty myself, so that I can fill again.  To shed the tan of summer, so that the healthy and new underneath has a chance to be revealed...  

I wonder...

  

if you continue, you will change...

                                                                Source: awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com via Vicky on Pinterest










She came on a Sunday afternoon, bearing Gin-Gins and a big smile.  She's been here in town on the weekends, going through her childhood home filled with her father's treasures.  Its been a year since he passed, shortly after the passing of my own father.  


We were in high school when we last had contact.  Now, decades older, we discover the parallels of our journey. And how we've "grown" and are "growing."  An hour flew by as we traversed over the subjects of death, and mourning, and what we've come to know, and what we may never know. It felt good for someone to know a piece of my grief, and for me to know a scrap of hers. 


And then she left for her home with a gladware container of cherry tomatoes.  I don't always know in the moment, but if you asked me about my weekend, I'd tell you her visit left me with a slice of unexpected joy.  


Thanks Elizabeth!  Lets do it again soon!    

"Its not about me..."

Thank you all for your encouraging words, prayers, and thoughtful comments over the past few days/weeks. You've all supported me and lifted me and helped me keep walking forward in faith on this journey of mine, and I am extremely grateful.  You all make a difference.

Sweet Sara was laid to rest yesterday wearing a t-shirt with the words "Its not about me" emblazoned on her chest, along with a pair of jeans. I came home from the Same Day Surgery Clinic in time to rest a bit, and then made my way to the computer for her service. I couldn't get the picture, but the music, the children crying occasionally in the background, Sara's beautiful voice singing Amazing Grace, and the sermon by the priest were all mingled together for a loving tribute of our girl. And true to her word of wanting a celebration, the last song played was "Oh Happy Day." Sara style, written all over it.


My grief bubble has become more transparent. Life is marching forward, and I am beginning to have moments of clarity once again.  This little guy, Crosby, has become the center of our world.  He has soulful puppy dog eyes with just a hint of naughtiness lingering on the edges.  We have a barrier at the top of the stairs so he won't wander off downstairs on us.  So when he disappeared on me the other day?  This was the last place I expected to find him... reclining on the sofa downstairs... the barrier?  Completely intact.  He merely takes a running leap and hurdles right over it it.   What were we thinking?

This is my friend from childhood, Lisa, on your far left (seated) and her knitting group in Alaska.  She just recently took the photo as they don't meet in the summer.  I am still touched every time I see someone out in public wearing my hockey lace bracelet.  Its pretty amazing to know that 6 months in to this fight, people still are so dedicated to me... even as far away as Alaska.    I couldn't be more honored. Thank you ladies, I swelled with joy upon seeing it.

My point and shoot camera can't really do this next one justice.  But for two years now, around the time of my Dad's birthday,  a monarch shows up in our yard.  Last year it was at my parent's house as we cleaned out Dad's things.  As I grabbed Dad's cane and walker, I noticed the ease in which the butterfly flew.  It dipped, it soared, it dive bombed us.  And the image of my Dad having the freedom to move and breathe again in Heaven brought me such comfort that day.  This year, not only was Dad on my mind, but seeing this in our front yard, reminded me of Sara and the freedom she would also gain in her heavenly home.  Maybe next year, there will be TWO butterflies in my yard.  

Our Sweet Sara... one last gift...

AT my last chemo session in September, I dumped my chemo bag by accident and the contents scattered everywhere.  The gratitude journal, the very journal that Sara had sent me for my Birthday a couple of years ago, disappeared.  My nurse graciously helped me maneuver around my infusion line and iv pole and I got on the floor to see underneath the recliner... nothing.

The nurse then did the same to be sure.  But chemo room number 7 wasn't bringing me any luck that day.  So sadly, I called the next few days to see if it had turned up.  It hadn't.

Today, after a long morning of lab work and waiting and visiting Dr. Panwalkar I waited for an infusion room to open up.  I suddenly jumped out of my chair and rushed to the nurses station and in a rush of words asked if they had perhaps found a notebook/journal?

And the nurse reached over and held up... my journal!!  The one I pour out my gratitude in.  They just found it... yesterday.   How on earth it lay hidden for three weeks, only to be found the day before I had treatment is more than just coincidence to me.  

I ran my fingers over the opening lines of the journal...

"First it begins inside your heart.  Something moves.  Then opens.  Then frees itself.  And now you feel a rhythm breaking its long silence.  This is going to be good."

And as many have surmised, I can just see the hands of Sara written all over this journal being placed back in my hands again.  I delighted in filling the pages with gratitude today.

My sweet, precious friend, Gitz,  who is newly in her heavenly home, will be having a funeral service tomorrow.  If any of you are inclined, it will be webcast by the link down below, at 1:30 pm.  I am still on for surgery tomorrow and do not know if I will be home or not in time to see.  My heart aches knowing I long to be there, but Sara isn't really going to be there either... obviously she is already busy looking out for all of us.  Plus,  I can feel her love any time I choose to.  And today, I am choosing to love you, Sara Frankl, deep and wide.  

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. 

SCCS Home Page | Siouxland Community Christian School

www.siouxlandcommunitychristian.com

Rejoicing through tears

I stumble to the cupboard in search of filters to make the morning coffee, my eyes blurry with tears.  I search and search, this door, and that one.  I stop, turn around and suddenly know the filters are in the drawer, where they have always been.  


Thank you God, she is home!


I've been in this grief filled space before.  It distorts the dailyness of life, and if it weren't for the mundane chores we do mechanically every day, I don't know how I would otherwise function.


I long to rejoice for my Sara, in her new heavenly home.  And I do, but through my fresh veil of grief.


Thank you God for the gift of her life and the way she drove spirit-filled grace into her every moment here!


 I search through my emails for her words, that she'd brought to me often, to soothe, comfort, and anchor me...  She has been through so much, so often...  it isn't long and I find what I think she would say to me on a day such as this:


In Sara's own words:




"it's ok to be discouraged. 


it's part of the process, really... at least it is for me. 


because i find when i am most discouraged is when i most lean into Him the way i should. 


i am praying friend that you take this all to Him, that you lean into Him, that you hand it to Him and trust Him to love you through it..."  




And:




"...just know it's ok to have moments when you don't feel the joy. 


it will come back, i promise. 


just let out the grief so you can make room for the joy to come back in..."




I think of these words as Rick performs his daily cleansing of the wound in my chest...




When the heart is cut or cracked or broken

Do not clutch it

Let the wound lie open

Let the wind from the good old sea

blow in to bathe the wound with salt

and let it sting.

Let a stray dog lick it

Let a bird fly in the hole and

sing a simple song

like a tiny bell and let it ring.  

~      Michael Leunig

 Thank you God, Sara is unbound, free.  Sara has left the condo!  She is breathing fully, without pain and in your arms Father, and her fathers.  Praise God!