smile.

Something about today was just off.  Maybe the gloomy weather.  Maybe the alarm going off during the wrong part of my sleep cycle.  Hormones?  Who knows?  It was just one of those days when I wished I could just crawl back under the rumpled bed covers and let the world spin on without me.

But, I had those sweet babies hugging my knees and looking forward to the magical possibilities they believed today would hold.  I had no choice.  I had to get up and be mom...And I had to smile.

No matter how I grumbled and fussed around this morning, Kensie followed me around like a puppy, kissed me, laughed at me, made me smile.  I wondered out loud how and why she would want to love on me so much when I was feeling so unloveable...Cami said "Because she knows she makes you happy." 

I so hope that's true.  I so hope those babies, all 9 of them, know they make me happy.  Every day.  I will smile when I am happy.  I will smile when I want them to think I'm happy.  I will smile because I want them to be happy.  When in doubt, smile.  Love.  And smile.

release.

Grudges.  Shoes.  Poisonous relationships.  Memories.  Nail polish.  I'm not discriminating.  I just have a hard time letting go...of anything.  Maybe a side effect of my childhood, or maybe just a loose wire upstairs... I may never know why...But I hoard both actual objects and emotions.

We moved last month, and I'm having a tough time organizing the new house.  My closet looks more like a department store stockroom than one woman's closet, and I wear approximately 1% of what I have stored in there.  I studied the racks today and considered getting some trash bags out to get a generous Goodwill donation together.  Then I got sidetracked because I started moving boxes around the bedroom and trying to figure out what we have in those boxes, why we need them, or whether I can get rid of any of it.  Shuffle it around and make excuses to hold on.  My specialty. 

As I stumble around my things, and I stumble around my life since Nick's cancer first gripped it nearly two years ago, I almost audibly hear the word "release."  Release the things.  They only clutter my life.  Release the fear.  It only blocks my path to faith.  Release grudges.  Holding grudges and being angry only takes time and energy away from building strong relationships with the many great  people in my life who deserve my time and energy.

Cluttered garage.  Cluttered closet.  Cluttered heart.  It's confusing, hard to move around, blocking the path to where I really want to be.  I must release.  I will release.  I will move forward.

I have a lot of little people watching me, learning from me, repeating what they see me do...And I can't imagine any of us, especially my little ones, stopping right here today.  We all need to dream.  We all need to love.  We all need to release the anchors, so we can fly.  

2011

I originally posted this on New Year's Eve, 12/31/11.  I wrote it as our friends, the Vargas', arrived to celebrate a new year coming...a new chance at happiness and prosperity...Their beautiful daughter, Tiffany had battled leukemia for years, and their financial situation had become desperate.  We all toasted and prayed for a new beginning that night, but stupid cancer appeared in Nury, Tiffany's mother.  On Christmas Day, 2012, with Tiffany in remission, her mother was lost to cancer.  Somehow, this feels like an important post to pull first from the archives, so here you go...

As I count down the final hours of 2011, I feel compelled to address all the previous hours somehow...wrap them up in a meaningful package...make sense of them..So painfully obvious is the fact that there is no sense in what we have faced and fought and endured this year. No sense in what we will continue to face and fight and endure for many years to come. In 2011, Nick, our handsome, athletic, intelligent son was diagnosed with brain cancer. Brain CANCER. I still have to say it over and over to try to grasp that, and yet, it still doesn't seem entirely real. I heard the words in the hospital. I laid with him in his hospital bed and swelled with pride and awe when he told me "I think this is a life changing experience, but I'm strong." I've driven him daily to 6 weeks of radiation. Held him down in clinic to have his port accessed while he screamed and twisted away from the pain. I've listened endlessly in clinic while other children wail against the needles. I've endured the torturous waiting for MRI results and slept too many nights in a hospital chair while the poison that may cure him pumps through Nick's veins and makes him sick. He IS strong. He is beautiful. He is my inspiration every day to do more and be more than I ever thought I would have to be. Also, in 2011, my best friend from high school, the mother of 3 small boys, found out she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. She's endured a mastectomy, chemo, baldness, fear, pain, but somehow, she's courageous and funny, and ironically, the former hair model is gorgeous as a baldy! In 2011, families lost children and mothers and fathers to cancer. Many more of us have lost our incomes, even our homes, as we try to contend with the rigors of cancer treatment and the mounting medical bills, prescription expenses, babysitting fees, traveling expenses...All of us have lost our innocence. Up until the time you hear CANCER as it applies to you, you innocently believe there will be tomorrow, or next week, or next year to make amends, be a better friend, work, love, live. Once you hear CANCER, nothing is sure or certain. After you hear CANCER, you lose friends. You gain friends. You learn to surrender pride and accept that this is your season to take and be tended to. You learn who will be your givers and who were just takers all along. That surprises you. You lose who you were before you heard CANCER. You have to figure out who you are with cancer...and hopefully, after cancer. You celebrate small victories and move from day to day in grateful celebration that you are there...just that you are there to see today...There is beauty in having a stripped down life. There is beauty in strength and courage. Cancer sucks, really sucks...robs your life of so much even if it doesn't steal your life completely. But as we are slowly learning, it also reveals some glorious and generous people, new relationships, appreciation, and a level of faith that we may not have enjoyed without the cancer. 2011 was the worst year I've ever endured. 2011 was the worst year our family has endured. But it wasn't all bad. And it can't be summarized, packaged up neatly and put away on a shelf. It's a "to be continued" episode...right into 2012, 2013, and beyond...We welcome 2012 with hope and faith and love and a resolve to continue fighting cancer and it's collateral damage in our lives and the lives of anyone else we are able to help.

Chasing Happiness

The day Nick was diagnosed with cancer was the day my life went from full color to black and white.  Already a fairly serious person, prone to perfectionism and cynicism, I never lived a caution to the wind, Rainbow Bright, carefree type of life, but in contrast to the darkness cancer brought, my old life feels like unbridled bliss. 

Cancer brought fear like I've never known and am still afraid to look square in the eye.  Cancer exposed me to emotional and physical pain I had spent a lifetime trying to avoid...Nick's pain, my pain, my family's pain, and the pain I witnessed in other patients and their families.  Pain that took a lot of courage to expose in my blog entries here.  Pain I chose to put away again after months of writing.  I don't remember what prompted it, but I stopped writing and pushed "Revert to Draft" on every one of my blog entries.  Maybe a part of me thinks that if nobody can see it in print, it will go away.  I don't know if or when I will publish those old posts again, but I do know I miss the cathartic effect writing has on me.  So here I am...back to the blog...

We're now 8 months post treatment.  8 months of clear MRI's.  8 months of trying to find our way back to a "normal" life...Only this attempt is amidst serious financial trouble and the ever present awareness that the cancer cloud hovers not far above or behind us.  Will the cancer return?  We don't know.  How do we plan lives around that type of uncertainty?  Maybe the way we all do...None of us really know what challenges we will face tomorrow or the next day, yet we dream and plan...We all know we will die, but we continue to live.

Lately, I've noticed the sun shining more often.  I've seen the colors in flowers.  I've had a few clean, clear breaths of fresh air fill my lungs and joyful moments fill my heart.  The light is pushing back on the dark now, and I appreciate the times I feel gratefulness, hopefulness, and most importantly, faithfulness.

  
I've heard it said that faith and fear cannot co-exist.  I consider that constantly, and I do believe that's true.  During Nick's treatment, I tried desperately to hold onto my faith, but I was mad at God.  I doubted his plans, and I feared what cancer would do to Nick.  I don't like being a fair weather fan.  I struggle...a lot...with the way I wavered in my faith.  My faith journey is just that...a journey...with some more bumps in the road than others maybe...but I'm still working on it...Still journeying toward stronger faith, deeper love, and someday, maybe, happiness as a rule rather than an exception.

Our enormous Pacific Ocean.  This was tonight's sunset in Encinitas, CA. 
This is where I feel the most at peace and where I'm reminded who is really in charge...